Overheard Conversations
by aprill99
Summary: A way for Lance to find out that Oliver is the Arrow and demonstrate the epicness that is Olicity. The show has frankly not done that couple justice lately and it makes me need to vent. This is the result. Review for me!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize does not in any way belong to me.**

"When Captain Lance started to reconfirm that Oliver Queen is the Arrow, he was visiting his daughter's grave.

He entered the graveyard and made his way towards the corner that housed Sara's plot. One hand was jammed in his pocket and the other held a bouquet of pink tulips. It was after his last shift at the station and the sun had begun to set.

Lance stopped dead when he heard a familiar voice. "Hey Sara," came Oliver's quiet voice. Lance frowned and moved until he could see the source. It just didn't make sense for Queen to be there. Hell, no one had even told the kid Sara was dead!

But eyes and ears didn't lie.

Queen was sitting on the ground cross legged in front of Sara's head stone. He placed a bouquet of bright yellow and orange sunflowers against the stone and sat back. "Hope you like the flowers," Oliver said. "They're not exactly typical for a graveyard, but you and me were never good at typical."

He sat back and Lance debated making his presence known, but the detective in him made him stay

"Felicity picked the color," he continued. "Coming to see you has been about the only decision I've made lately that she liked." Queen picked a blade of grass off the ground and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. He glanced around and sighed. "I have too many people to visit here," he murmured. "My mother, my father, Tommy... But you were the one I needed to talk to."

It's completely silent for a moment before Queen speaks again. "God I wish you were here." His voice is so raw that it strikes Lance like a smack to the face. "Right now everything is just..." He swallowed and started again. "It's feels like when the gambit sank," he said finally. "Like everything is crashing, and you have to move but can't tell which direction is which. And lately I feel like the water just keeps rushing in and I can't move, and I can't fight, and I can't stop it."

He leaned his head down to his hands and rubbed at his temples. "Diggle and Lyla are married now," he said suddenly. "And the baby... she's a little girl and she's beautiful. She's sweet and undamaged and tiny and so completely innocent." There was another pause and then, "they named her Sara."

Lance balked. He didn't even know that Queen's bodyguard had known his daughter, let alone well enough to name his own daughter after.

"I don't know what to do about Thea anymore," Oliver continued. "She knows about me now but we've both changed so much... So many things between us are just- broken. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to fix everything."

Queen let out a huff of air. "She tried to kill Merlyn," his voice was tinged with disbelief. "She tried to hand him over to the League and I stopped her." Lance could see him shake his head and bight his lip. "I went to Nanda Parabat and I bartered for Malcolm Merlyn."

His words didn't make sense to Lance. Malcolm Merlyn was dead. Killed by the Arrow during the Undertaking.

"Roy is good for her though," Oliver went on. "He's a good kid. A good person."

Lance's frown deepened he hadn't known that Sara had known Roy Harper but he supposed it made sense. The two of them had been the ones dating the Queen siblings for a while. It was a fairly straight forward connection.

Oliver took a deep breath and lifted his head, hands falling to the ground. "I haven't heard anything from your mom," he informed. "But I've had the Allen kid looking out for her in Central City."Oliver chuckled darkly. "He was always late and then he got hit by lightning and suddenly nothing's fast enough for him. I've been trying to show him that what we do means darkness and choices but..." He shrugged. "I can't force him to understand. Especially when understanding feels like this." He stopped for a moment. "You remember what being poisoned feels like?" he asked rhetorically. "Like something inside you is burning and twisting. That's about where I'm at right now."

Lance watched as his fingers twitched in the grass, tapping sporadically. "Your dad doesn't like me," Oliver said to the stone. Lance quirked a small smile at that. "He doesn't have to. In fact, he's more likely to survive if he doesn't. Laurel though... She's trying to be like you and I. Can't. Stop. Her."

At this point, Lance could practically see Oliver's jaw becoming more and more rigid. Lance almost worried that the Kid's teeth would snap. His shoulders were back and set. He looked like a man getting ready to fight a war Oliver kept talking. "She's still trying to save everyone, fix everything." Lance almost sighs himself at that. No matter how he felt about Queen, the man new his daughter's personality well. "She hasn't learned yet that dedicating your life to fixing things means letting little pieces of yourself break away." Oliver's voice was so hollow and matter of fact that it sounded like he was voicing a death sentence.

"I feel like if you were here you could tell her that," Queen went on. "Now Nyssa is training her because I can't do it. It's one thing to be broken, it's something else to be the one to cause the break, and God knows I've broken enough things." Oliver came up to a crouch. "Nyssa doesn't hate me like she should," he said quietly. "She doesn't like me but she doesn't hate me either. On some level she actually seems to understand that we all cared about you." Queen went silent. "She never believed that I could ever have killed you. She never knew the girl you were before me either though." Oliver shook his head again. "I once told your father that I had killed you. That was the most honest thing I said in that entire conversation. By asking you on the Gambit I killed the girl you should have been."

Queen stood up then, hands in his pockets. "Ra's wants me to take his place," he said. "Diggle doesn't really understand but the soldier in him knows why I should consider it. Roy, Laurel, and Thea don't know yet. Felicity thinks I'm insane for thinking of it. She actually called the League Evil Incorporated."

Against the entire tone of the conversation, Queen actually seems to be smiling a bit now. "She still thinks I have a soul. That I'm a good man" his smile turned sad and self-mocking. "She doesn't know everything I've done." He heaved another sigh. "She's with Palmer, and for now he's a good guy. But he's too much like me, and too new at this to know it yet."

Lance immediately filed away the name. Palmer had been suspicious with his sudden attitude changes regarding the vigilante. Knowing Queen wasn't surprising, or Felicity considering they worked together.

Oliver Queen took in one more deep breath and scrubbed a tired hand over his face. "Keep Tommy out of trouble up there alright?" He pressed a kiss against his palm and then laid it gently against Sara's grave stone. "Sleep peacefully Tahir Al Safir."

He turned and made his way out of the graveyard through a side entrance. Lance moved forward and stood in the place Oliver had just occupied. He was silent for a moment before letting out a long breath. "Oh my baby girl," he sighed. "What were you and Queen involved with?"

When Lance was safely back in the precinct, he typed Oliver's parting words in to the translation program. It was Arabic for Canary and then Lance almost knew. Sara had been called the canary and only a handful of people (that Lance hadn't thought Oliver was included in) had known that.

So Lance knew two things for certain. The first was that Oliver was involved with much more than he had thought. The second, was that somehow Queen had known Sara was dead before Quentin had.

He finally confirmed his theory when the Arrow leaves the precinct late one night after picking up Felicity Smoak. The blonde computer genius had been kidnapped and held hostage until the Arrow showed up. He had disappeared from the scene only to reappear in the almost empty precinct.

The Arrow had thanked Lance, and then vanished in to the shadows, taking Miss Smoak with him. A security camera had showed them going out of a side door instead of through the roof so Lance had followed them. He got close enough to hear what sounded like an argument and quickly stopped.

"This only ends two ways Felicity," the Arrow was saying. Even through the voice modulator clipped to his jacket which normally did such a good job of flattening the emotion in the man's voice, Lance could hear pain and frustration in the words. "Either I say yes or everyone dies! And I **can not** let that happen."

"Maybe there's another option-" Felicity tried.

"The Arrow quickly cut her off. "I know there is," he said fiercely. "I can't lead anything if I'm dead but I was really hoping we could make that plan B. Now it looks like that might be the only option."

"Felicity shook her head and took a step forward. "I refuse to accept that."

"And I refuse to watch you die," the Arrow returned, turning to face her completely. "Everyone who has died because of the League is on me. Every single life. I will not let anybody else I care about die for me."

"But you just said it," Felicity said in a quiet, pleading voice. "Because of the League. Not because of you."

"Because I can't make a choice," the Arrow growled. "it should be simple Felicity. It should be so easy. If I lead the League they do what I tell them to. I could tell them to stop killing and they would do it without a second thought. But I just can't..." he trailed off and dropped his head back against the alley wall.

Lance watched as the Arrow slid down the wall and sat on top of a low dumpster. He had never seen the Arrow look so defeated and tired. It was so... human.

Felicity walked forward slowly and reached out one, tentative hand. Lance watched with growing disbelief as her fingers slipped past the edge of the green material that hid the Arrow's face. The blonde hacker cupped the vigilante's cheek with the palm of her hand. "Hey," she said quietly. "When was the last time you slept?"

The Arrow didn't remove her hand. By contrast, he seemed to tip his head further in to her touch, letting her take some of his weight. He let out a sigh that came through the modulator as nothing more than a rush of static. "When was Tuesday?"

"Tuesday?" Felicity asked incredulously. Lance privately agreed. Tuesday had not been recent. "Oliver," she said softly and detective Lance froze. "It's Sunday night."

The Arrow. No. Lance Corrected himself. Oliver. Oliver Queen. Oliver Queen was the Arrow.

Oliver raised his hand and turned off the modulator. "Guess that means it's been about 120 hours." The bell chimed in the town bell tower, signaling that it was eleven o'clock at night. "Huh," Oliver said. "Guess that makes it 121."

"You need sleep," Felicity told him, starting to take a step back.

"No," Oliver said, gripping her free hand and tucking it against his chest. "I don't. I just need... two minutes. Two minutes where none of this is my responsibility. Where I don't have to think. Just- two minutes."

Lance saw Felicity shrug but make no attempt to take another step backwards. The hand on Oliver's cheek moved up and slowly pushed the hood back and away from his face. The mask was the next thing to go, pulled off his head and dropped in to the pocket of her bright pink dress. Then Oliver Queen sat in front of her, his face clearly visible as he blinked in the faint mist. "So take them," she said quietly.

"Will you-" Queen started, then broke off and looked down. He tipped his head up again and swallowed. A small, almost pained smile crossed his face. "Will you wait with me?" Felicity was silent a moment. "Please?" Oliver continued. His voice was pleading. "It's two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds. Just... please?"

Felicity took a step forward so she was standing between Oliver's knees. Her hand moved back up to Oliver's face and she nodded. "Okay."

Oliver looked up at her with tired eyes. A moment later he let them shut. His head tipped sideways and into her hand. One of his gloved hands kept Felicity's palm over his heart while the other moved up and closed hesitantly around her hip. Felicity moved her free hand lightly over his jaw and around to the back of his neck, stroking over spots of tension. Bit by bit, Lance watched Oliver's head sag forwards until it rested against her shoulder.

Lance turned away, and quietly made his way back in to the precinct. Watching that moment had felt just plain wrong. Low, and underhanded.

Because the man in that alley was not a man he could arrest. That man was a fighter who had been doing the best he could for a very long time. A man on the brink of letting everything around him break away into fractured edges.

More than that, this was a kid that Lance had watched grow up. A little boy with a mop of sandy hair who had chased Laurel across the monkey bars at the playground and immediately dropped to the ground and caught her when she had gotten scared and started to cry. He was the middle school student who had stolen a picture Sara had drawn off of the bulletin board in the hallway when her teacher wouldn't let her take it home. And he was the gangly teenager who had preferred staying at his house with it's rules, and curfews, and chores because it actually felt like a home. And he was the man who had let Lane hate him because it was what Sara would have wanted. Besides, the fact that he was the vigilante meant that he was also the man who had saved Lance and the lives of everyone he cared about more than once.

The problem Lance had originally foreseen with knowing the Arrow's identity had come true. Lance had found out his identity, and that had made him a person. A person with a family, with people he cared about, and who cared about him. It was impossible to arrest that man for trying to save lives.

If Lance had, it would have felt like the biggest lie in the world.

**A/N: So what did you guys think? This has just been floating around in my head for a while so I thought I would write it down and share it with you guys. Review for me! Maybe I'll come up with something else for you guys soon. Review! Review! Review! xoxoxoxoxooxxooxxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing you recognize.**

Captain Lance sat in his car within the minimum distance for the surveillance equipment he had planted in Thea Queen's apartment. As a police officer, he was aware that he was breaking several right to personal privacy laws, but he needed the information. Lance needed to know for sure weather or not he should be hauling Oliver Queen's ass to the precinct in handcuffs at gun point.

He had considered planting the equipment in Felicity Smoak's apartment before thoroughly dismissing the idea when he remembered that the blonde could hack in to the NSA in twenty minutes flat on a bad day. The loft belonging to John and Lyla Diggle had been his second thought. This thought had taken a nose dive out the window when he had managed to dig up the fact that both halves of that particular couple were ex-special forces. Roy Harper was sleeping god knows where and Ray Palmer had 140 IQ points and 3 PhDs. Besides, the owner of Palmer Technologies wasn't exactly buddy buddy with the Arrow.

There was no point in bugging Verdant because of all of the noise distortion. Besides, after a quick inspection Lance had concluded that getting through the door to the basement required either the code, or extremely heavy fire power. Laurel would have known about any surveillance equipment the second it was in place. Hell, he had taught Laurel where cops put surveillance tech himself for Christ's sake.

So, Thea Queen's loft it was.

The images on screen were a bit grainy, but he could see enough. Enough to know that the image being displayed was one of the strangest he had ever seen. After twenty plus years as a cop in Starling City, that was saying something.

Oliver Queen stood in the center of an array of training matts that the Queen siblings apparently saw fit to keep in storage. He was wearing cargo pants and no shirt and Lance would have believed he was in the middle of training if it weren't for the fact that he's holding Diggle's infant daughter Sara in one arm. In the other, he held a two foot long metal sword with a wickedly sharp edge. Lance had seen enough stabbing reports and collected enough switch blades as evidence to know that this was a weapon designed to deal out quick, efficient death.

Sara was crying and Oliver was wearing an expression of semi-repressed panic. It was actually almost funny. Face the man up against an unlimited army of deadly assassins and you would be met with nothing but a tightened jaw and blank gaze. Hand him a crying baby, and suddenly absolute terror started to set in.

"Shh..." Oliver said, bouncing up and down slightly on the balls of his feet. He crossed the training matts and placed the practice sword on in a rack that looks a bit like an umbrella stand. He shifted the baby so that he was up against his shoulder and sighed. "I don't know how to make you stop crying," he said tiredly. "I've never actually been that good at fixing things."

He paced across the room, still bobbing up and down. "I can't get you to stop so we're going to try something a little bit different. Just..." he paused. "Work with me for a minute okay?" Queen shuffled Sara so that he was holding her against his chest with one hand and shuffled through a bag on a tall bar stool in front of the kitchen counter before extracting a soft pink blanket.

With movements gentler than Lance had ever thought Queen would be capable of, he wrapped Sara carefully in the blanket and formed his arms in to a rough cradle around the crying baby. With a huff of breath, he leaned back against the stainless steal counter. "I don't know how to get you to stop," he repeated. "So how about you just cry? Go on. I'm not about to let you go." Lance saw him duck his head down and press a kiss in to the downy brown air on her head. "Just go ahead. You're safe. I've got you."

The crying continued and Oliver tipped his head back with his eyes shut. "I don't sing," he stated. "So lullabies are out. And I don't know any nursery rhymes." He joggled Sara gently and Lance very nearly called him up to share a few of his own patented baby calming methods if only for the sake of clearing up the audio feed. Then Oliver spoke, sounding defeated. "Well, we know your lungs can't be the problem. I'm sure Diggle will be thrilled." He looked down at Sara, "Do you think you could at least try to fall asleep before he shows up? I'm preparing to beg here _malen'kya pitchka."_

The crying paused. Sara took a deep breath and sniffed quietly, looking up at Queen expectantly. Oliver looked down at her like he had been handed a tiny miracle. "Russian?" he said with slight disbelief. "Twenty minutes of crying and you stop when I speak Russian?" Sara sniffled more loudly and seemed ready to burst in to another fit of cries. "_Khorosho, khorosho," _Oliver said quickly. "_Net angliyskogo. _I get it. Just no more crying _khorosho malen'kya pitchka." _

Lance spared a brief moment to wonder when the hell Queen had learned Russian. He knew for a fact that it hadn't been a class in Oliver's high school and not one he would have taken even if it was an option. Probably around the same time he was figuring out how to put Arrows in criminals.

Oliver continued to murmur in a quiet language that Lance didn't understand. He doesn't understand a word of it but the kid made the language rhythmic and gentle, like it's own lullaby. Eventually Sara drifted off to sleep and Oliver paused, checking to see if the crying was actually done. Lance could watch, even on the grainy film as Oliver let out a breath of relief. "_Spokoynoy nochi," _he said. "Sleep well _malen'kya pitchka."_

The sound of the door of the loft opening and high heels clicking along the floor came across the mike before Felicity Smoak entered the range of the button camera. Queen's gaze locked on her the second the door opened and his back stiffened as though he was half way ready for a fight. "You got her to sleep," Felicity said in a hushed voice. "According to Digg that's been almost impossible lately."

"That would have been a good warning to have when Digg asked if I could watch her," Oliver said in a tone that suggested he was more than used to getting news a little later than he would have liked to, and had, at this point just plain stopped expecting to find out anything important on time.

Felicity shrugged and put down her brightly colored hand bag. "It looks like you managed just fine."

She shucked off her coat and Queen looked back down at Sara. "Yeah well, I think at this point it's safe to say we've reached an understanding."

"I noticed," Felicity stepped closer to him and peered down at the pale pink bundle. She reached out carefully with thin hands that were more suited to typing than throwing a punch and brushed across the baby's forehead, tucking the blanket back from her face. The nails were tipped with bright blue polish and they contrasted heavily with the sleek, dark, surroundings of the loft. She looked back up and met Oliver's eyes. "Can I take her?"

"Yeah," Queen said quickly. Lance watched as the two of them shifted awkwardly as Oliver attempted to maneuver Sara in to Miss Smoak's arms without waking the baby up again. "Just- be careful," he said. Lance could hear a touch of anxiety in his voice. "Getting to... this. Took a little while."

Felicity rolled her eyes. "I know how to hold a baby Oliver, and considering the number of nannies you probably had I ay even know better than you."

Oliver shrugged and picked up a shirt from the couch and threw it over his head. "It was only ever one nanny actually. Raisa. She cooked for us to." He leaned back against the edge of the couch and his face was in profile to the camera. "I did my best to set her up with a different job after..." he trailed off and swallowed. "Everything."

Felicity hummed and the room went silent for a moment. "You never did tell me when you learned how to speak Russian."

"It's-"

"A long story," Felicity finished. "I'm sorry," she backtracked. "You might have been going to end that differently but you don't. Not generally. I mean, sometimes it is but normally you finish either with 'long story' or 'complicated' so I just figured I would save us some time." She slowed down her stream of words and Lance was able to get through a full count of three before she spoke again. "Which I have no longer done since I took the time to explain that." She sighed. "Sorry again."

Oliver shook his head and Lance could see that he was smiling in a way that was smaller and more genuine than he had ever seen before. "Don't apologize."

"Why?" Felicity asked. "Do you have permanent dibs on apologies these days? Because personally I think those would be pretty hard to own."

"No," Queen said. "Because you're right." He waited for a long moment and then stood up straight and made his way back over to Felicity, standing closer but still outside of the general range of appropriate personal space. "There are... a lot of things I haven't told you. Things I haven't told anyone." He took a deep breath, "I learned how to speak Russian from a man I met on a prison freighter the year that Ivo came to the Island. I saved his life and because he thought he owed me, he made me a part of the Bratva... and he taught me the language."

Lance froze. The Bratva? As is the Russian mob. How was it possible that that connection had been missed? Suddenly, his thoughts spun back to the first time Thea had been arrested for possession of Vertigo. Oliver had claimed he had paid money to a low level Russian for information, but if he was a Bratva member then no payment would have been necessary. The Bratva didn't run on money. It depended on debts, loyalty, and favors.

Felicity nodded. "Is that where you were?" she asked. "When you weren't on the island I mean. You said Hong Kong before, but only for part of it."

"I spent enough time in Moscow to be made a captain," Queen said, flattening the emotion out of his voice. "I still have connections. People who owe me favors and since Alexi is now in Jail, I may even be back in their good standing again," he pushed himself lightly off the back of the couch and then fell back against it. "Frankly I'd rather not have to find out the hard way."

"Makes sense," she agreed. "Especially since I have a feeling that the hard way for the Russian mob probably means- you know... death, and bullets, and pointy things.

Oliver shrugged. "Something like that." Lance had been a detective long enough to note that Oliver had bitten in to his lower lip and though his arms were relaxed the first two fingers on his right hand were rubbing against his thumb. Body language said everything. Whatever memories Queen had of the Russian Mob were clearly not pleasant ones.

Felicity shifted Sara in her arms and sat on the stool Oliver had just vacated. They were silent for a few minutes and Oliver moved to stand in front of the wide wall of windows, back to the camera. "What did you call her?" Felicity asked. Oliver turned to her with his eyebrows raised slightly, clearly asking for a clarification. "When you were talking earlier," she expanded. "It just seemed like a nickname. Malka pitcha?"

"_Malen'kya pitchka," _he corrected with a small smile. "It means little bird. It just..." he trailed off. "Seamed to fit."

Lance felt his breathing tighten. Sara, his Sara had been called canary. Now this tiny baby that shared her name was sharing it in spirit as well.

"What's Arrow?" Felicity asked.

Queen crossed his arms and leaned his body against one of the support pillars. "Arrow is _Strelka_, but they didn't call me that there. I wasn't the Arrow there. I was a lot more like the Hood there," he shook his head once and glanced down at the floor. "And I wasn't even that yet."

Felicity fidgeted slightly, and Lance got the idea that she was searching for a slightly happier topic to lighten the sudden darkness that had crept in to the loft. "What would they call me?"

"You are **_never _**going to find that out," Oliver said. His voice seemed to drop octaves by the syllable. The cold emanating from his tone made even Lance shiver and it wasn't directed at him. The owner of this voice- this person. Well, it was easy to see why criminals in the city had started running scared.

Felicity looked like she wanted to be affronted or push the subject but Oliver cut her off. "Please Felicity just-" he took a half step forward as his words broke off. "That is... a part of my life I have never wanted to get near you. In Russia when I had you go to the hotel instead of the meeting with Anatoly," he swallowed. "There was a reason."

Quentin's blood went absolutely cold. The Russian Mob had all sorts of nasty connections. Drugs, murder, and money laundering all made the list. The most disgusting organized crimes of all were different though. Half the Bratva and the Triad were knee deep in human trafficking and prostitution.

"Oh," Felicity said in a hollow tone of realization. "That's either very considerate of you or completely gross and I'm not exactly sure which one I want to go with." She walked carefully past Queen, brushing her arm against his as she went. It could have been a casual movement, but from the way the tension relaxed out of Oliver's shoulders Lance could see that the one movement was much more reassuring than that.

She tucked Sara gently between two couch cushions to keep her from moving and stood up. "Well, I was only here for my lunch break. Which," she checked her phone. "Is about to end. So I had better go and meet Ray."

The corner of Queen's mouth tightened but he stood to the side in order to completely clear her path to the door. She had just opened it when Oliver spoke. _"Solnyshko_" he said finally. A small smile played at the edges of his mouth. "It means light, warmth, sunshine_. Moye solnyshko._"

Felicity paused for a moment in the door and gave Oliver a bright smile before stepping out.

Lance quickly terminated the video feed and started his car, pulling away from he loft and turning back towards the precinct. A lot of what he had heard that day would be just cause to arrest Oliver Queen and throw him in jail for vigilantism, murder, assault, assault with intent, assault with a deadly weapon, B&amp;E, drug trade, theft, money laundering, and human trafficking.

But for some reason he just **_couldn't. _**

What he had feared had become a reality. The Arrow had become a person. A real person with another life. People he cared about who cared about him.

So no Oliver Queen was not a hero. Lance was convinced about that. Now he just had to decide if the man was a villain.

**A/N: Hey guys! Let me just start by saying that I was originally only going to do a one shot but the response was so incredible that I felt like I had to keep going. Who else is totally freaking out over this week's episode!? I'm trying to come close to cannon because it looks like 3x19 is going to be majorly epic and I want to use as much material from the show as possible. That meant I had to give Lance some conflict. Everyone on this show has internal conflict! Hands up if you think they could all use a hug and some group therapy. Review for me! I'll answer questions if you've got them. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo**

**P.S. Sorry about any typos. I'm really tired while writing this and I'm not great at catching typos on a good day.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

The first time Captain Lance ever went in to the foundry, everyone was in full out crisis mode. Lance had led men in to a drug raid. Rumors of a new strain of Vertigo being developed had reached the cops and Lance had gone in to try to stop it at the ground floor. Evidently he wasn't the only one.

Queen and Harper had swung in to the industrial building and set to work, bows drawn and arrows flying. Lance might not have particularly agreed with vigilante methods, but he couldn't argue with their timing.

Or their results.

Even their strategy had been sound. Oliver and Laurel had gone straight in to fight close quarters while Diggle had cleared the entrances. If Lance had to guess he would say that Queen's bodyguard had also been in charge of the getaway vehicle. The sound of high-tech machinery and flashing lights overhead confirmed for Lance that Ray Palmer had been on literal over-watch. He knew enough about how the Arrow operated to know that each and every team member had Felicity Smoak talking in their ear.

The only snag had come when one of the dealers had fired a tiny dart in to Queen's neck. A collection of multi-lingual and highly varied curse words had reached Lance's ears through the sound of bullets firing, and metal crashing. Smoke and soot made the air dense and the semi darkness of the building made it difficult to see.

More bodies moving with brutal efficiency had entered the fray and Lance rolled his eyes. Couldn't he get anything done without some masked vendetta getting in the way?

Even after the dart had gone in to Oliver's neck he continued fighting. Lance watched as the kid who had once been unable to throw a decent punch without breaking his hand took down five attackers, alternating between shooting and using his bow as a club. Squinting, Lance could see Oliver swaying on the spot as he began to stumble towards the exit.

"Delta Charlie 52 to attack unit withdraw the hostiles are under arrest. I say again hostiles are under arrest," Lance called in to his radio as he moved quickly after Oliver. "Hey kid," he said, catching up and gripping Oliver's shoulder as he stumbled again. "Kid are you okay?" he asked. "Is your team around to get you back?"

Oliver swayed back slightly and Lance gripped both his shoulders to keep him upright, taking more of his weight. "There's someone" Oliver managed, the synthesizer barely hiding pain. "He's waiting outside. Laurel-"

"I'm here," Laurel said, emerging from behind a storage unit and sliding under one of Oliver's arms to act as a human crutch.

Lance stepped back and made a gesture. "One of the guys in masks stuck him in the neck with some kind of dart thing. I don't know what was in it but from the looks of him nothing good."

Laurel nodded. "We'll figure it out at base."

Lance returned the nod and muttered. "Take care of him. The city is going to crap anyway, we're going to need him if any more masked psychos show up." He took a step away and then turned back around. "Oh, and you might think to call Thea Queen," he barked. "I have a feeling she'll want to know her brother's been poisoned."

He had ignored Laurel's gasp of surprise and gone to stick every perp he could find in handcuffs. It was slightly depressing that the absence of everyone in a mask had vanished in to thin air by the time he got there. The only people left were the local level of drug producing low life. Win some lose some he supposed.

The criminals went to booking and Lance allowed himself a moment to collapse in his desk chair. He kicked his feet up on the desk and rubbed at his temples. Lately, he had been feeling inescapably crushed by the sensation that he was incredibly and completely out of his league. Pun intended.

Mentally kicking himself, Lance got up and swung his coat over his shoulders. He had gotten in to the car and found a note sitting on his dashboard. Four numbers were written in green sharpie and Lance considered the page for a moment before folding it and putting it in to his pocket. Then he had driven to Verdant and found himself standing in front of the forever locked basement door.

He ground his teeth together and slowly entered in the four numbers written on the page tucked safely in his pocket in to the digital key pad. The red light that indicated the door was locked flicked green with a soft beep. With a last sigh, Lance pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Steel. That was the first thing he noticed. Lots and lots of shiny steel and pointy objects as well as a large computer bank running technical programs he didn't understand. Two manikins, one empty and the other dressed in the red leather suit normally worn by Roy Harper stood in glass cases.

Oliver Queen lay on a stainless steel medical table with two IV needles in one arm and a blood pressure cuff on the other. A monitor that wouldn't have been out of place in a hospital beeped at an alarmingly fast rate, showing Queen's heartbeat. Every member Lance knew about on team Arrow including Palmer and Thea was moving around the foundry and paid him absolutely no attention.

Roy gathered his weapons and started to pull on his own disguise before barreling out the door past Lance with barely a nod his direction. Thea split her focus between her boyfriend's retreating back and cleaning away blood that had splattered on Oliver's forehead. Diggle was rigging up medical monitors while Palmer drew blood and examined it under a microscope that Felicity was connecting to one of her computers. Laurel was unloading a cabinet of medical supplies.

"Damn it," Diggle swore. "His heart rate is all over the place! One second it's through the roof and the next it's nearly flat lining. I can't get a good enough fix to give him anything for it."

"Is giving him meds for both an option?" Thea asked.

Felicity shook her head quickly. "Mixing opposite drugs is not a thing anyone should do. Best case scenario they cancel each other out and the worst case is they make everything worse," she looked to Ray. "Have you got anything?"

Palmer shook his head. "I can't get a good enough focus on these machines," he pulled the prepped slide and the blood vial from the counter and dropped them in to his pocket. "If I can get these samples under the machines at palmer Tech I can try to figure out what exactly is in this drug and try to work out an antidote."

"I'll come with you," Thea said immediately. "I can call Walter to get you the records from the last Vertigo antidote we cooked up at Queen Consolidated." He swung on a leather jacket and stepped away from the medical table. "Besides I can't just sit here doing nothing while Ollie is... like this." She looked to Palmer, "I'll meet you at the car outside."

Palmer nodded to her and looked at Felicity. "I'm sorry," the blonde said. "I wish I could come with you but-"

He cut her off. "Felicity. If what we know about this new strain of Vertigo is true then it means Oliver is about to go through something inside his own head that is a hell of a lot worse than Purgatory." He trailed off and gave her a small, somewhat forced smile. "Someone you care about is hurting. I would be shocked if you didn't want to stay."

With that he turned and left and a moment later Diggle's phone buzzed. The bodyguard glanced down and swore again under his breath. "Lyla's sister was in a car accident and the babysitter isn't available," he looked up at Felicity. "I can stay-"

"No," she cut him off. "Go and take care of your daughter," she tapped his shoulder gently. "I've got this." Diggle nodded and pushed out the door, nodding to Lance as he went.

"What about me?" Laurel asked, standing up from her raid of the medical cabinet. Lance watched the interaction with interest. The last few moments told him something interesting about the chain of command in "Team Arrow". John Diggle may have been the soldier, and Roy and Thea were fighters, but Felicity could give orders.

Felicity sighed. "Go home," Laurel looked affronted and Felicity spun in her chair to face her. "Don't you have like the mega court case of all mega court cases tomorrow morning? There's no point in us catching the criminals if we can't put them in jail."

Laurel nodded slowly and turned to walk out the door. She gave Quentin a small smile on her way out which he returned tightly. He wanted to be on good terms with his daughter, but that didn't mean he couldn't be ticked off over being habitually lied to for nearly three years.

The foundry was empty apart from Oliver, Felicity, and Captain Lance and Felicity sagged back in her chair. With a sigh she pushed her feet across the floor and over until she was sitting near Oliver's head. She folded her arms on the edge of the table and placed her chin on top of them. "I know you're a hero and everything Oliver," she said quietly. "But do you think maybe you could take a day where you don't end up, you know, dying? Maybe day isn't the right term. Night is probably better. Crime seems to increase remarkably after seven thirty at night."

"The criminals with a sense of morals generally seem to feel better under the cover of darkness," Lance said. Felicity didn't move or show she was startled by his presence so Lance moved forward. "It's the criminals who aren't shy about being criminals in the light of day who are the really slimy ones."

"I understand that logic," she said without looking up. A frown crossed her face, "although to be honest I kind of wish I didn't." She sighed. "My life has gotten weird lately."

Lance chuckled once without humor. "I can only imagine." He took a few steps forward until he was standing across the medical table from Felicity, Oliver's body between them. "Hey listen, can I ask you something?" Felicity looked up at him and waited so Lance continued. "You seem like a sweet girl. God knows you're smart. You must have had options. So how did you end up mixed up with all of this?" he gestured around them. "How did you end up in the middle of all of this?"

Felicity bit her lower lip. "My mom was a cocktail waitress in Vegas," she said. "And while I love her, I have never wanted to be like her. So I went to MIT as soon as I could apply which was two years early I might add." She took a breath and Lance recognized that she was using the opportunity to stay on topic. "In college I was part of this group..." she trailed off. 'Which I should really not discuss with an officer of the law. Anyway, after that ended I saw this interview Walter Steele did on 60 Minutes about how they were going to rebuild Queen Consolidated."

She shrugged and put her chin down on her hands. "I wanted to be a part of it so I took a job in the IT department. After about three years Oliver got back and I didn't pay much attention to it apart from being happy for the Queen's that they had a family member back. Then three weeks after everyone found out Oliver wasn't quiet as 'dead'," her fingers sketched air quotes around the word. "as they thought. He walked in to my office with a laptop _full _of bullet holes and some _ridiculous _story about spilling a latte on it."

A small smile moved across her face as though the memory was more amusing than it sounded. "He kept on showing up but his lying didn't get any better." She glanced down at Oliver and ran her fingers lightly over the back of his knuckles. "For someone who lies literally all the time, he actually kind of sucks at it. Then one night he showed up in my car outside of Queen Consolidated in full Arrow gear with a bullet hole in his shoulder." She paused for a moment. "I wanted to figure out a way to make the world better. I wanted to be a part of something better," she waved at the foundry. "This... it's my something bigger."

"There was a night almost three years ago when the Arrow paid Moira Queen a visit," Lance remembered. "He put his weapons down and she shot him in the chest before jumping out a window. We had a blood sample but the lab screwed up and destroyed it. That was you." It wasn't a question but Felicity nodded in answer anyway.

The monitors beeped shrilly and suddenly Oliver thrashed, feet kicking out. He bolted upright with a gasp and looked around wildly. His gaze locked on Felicity as he struggled to breath. "Felicity?" he croaked out.

"I'm here," she said, locking her hand around his fingers. "I'm okay Oliver."

Oliver sagged slightly towards her. "John?" he asked. "Thea, Laurel, Roy, Lance..."

Lance froze at hearing his name on the list of people Oliver checked on immediately after regaining consciousness. "All fine," Felicity assured.

The beating of his heart picked up and the harsh beeping of the monitor began to fill the room. "Shadow..." he trailed off, eyes drooping. "Sara-" A coughing fit wracked his body and his hand disengaged from Felicity's to cover his mouth. When it came away it was spotted with blood. His head jerked up, eyes suddenly clear. "Tie me down," he said speaking quickly and clearly. "You have to."

"Oliver..." Felicity said pleadingly.

"Felicity," he gritted out, face contorted with pain as another set of coughing wracked his chest. "My nightmares get violent and these will be worse than any I have ever had. If I am not tied down I will hurt you and I **_can't _**do that." He searched Felicity's face quickly before turning to Lance.

"Handcuff me," he said. His voice was filled with authority even as his eyes began to go clouded and his body started to shake. He fixed Lance with a hard stare. "If I start moving you handcuff me to the goddamn table."

Lance nodded once and Oliver looked briefly relieved before his body collapsed back on the table. A moment later he began to jerk. Lance jumped forward and moved as quickly as possible to secure Oliver's hands to the table. A few moments later, his body went briefly lax, small jerks running through him like after shocks. His chest arched up off the table and Lance launched his body forward to try to hold him down. Eventually he went still.

He took a step back and Felicity reached forward, brushing a cool cloth over his forehead. "When Palmer left he said something about going through something worse than purgatory inside his own head," Lance said slowly. "What exactly is this stuff he got injected with?"

Felicity sucked in the corner of her mouth and glanced back down at Oliver. Lance followed her gaze. Queen's eyes were shut but he could see that there was movement under the lids. The tendons and muscles in his neck stood out in rigid lines. "The version of Vertigo before this made people see their worst fears," she explained in a quiet voice. "From what we've figured out about this version, it basically traps you inside your own nightmare. It targets," she stopped and swallowed. "It targets the part of your brain that generates fear combined with the part that makes you sleep. When you wake up and the hallucination breaks, your fear level decreases, and the Vertigo puts you back to sleep again. Then it starts over."

Lance's brain spun as he tried to process this new information. "So this drug," he said. "Has gone from some recreational pill that made you go loopy to an injection that actually traps you inside your own worst nightmare."

She nodded. "Whatever Oliver is most afraid of. Right now... that's all that's in his head."

Oliver made a gasping choke and jerked. His knees bent and his legs kicked out before he collapsed back. The handcuff chains rattled and his hands clenched and unclenched before his eyes shot open. He turned his head sideways and locked them on Felicity as his chest jerked with another round of coughing. Blood gathered by the side of his mouth but he didn't look away. "Felicity," he croaked. "John, Roy, Thea, Laurel, Captain Lance?"

"We're fine," Felicity assured. "We're all here, and we're all okay Oliver." She ran a hand over his head and shoulders, passing over the lines of his neck and shoulders. Oliver dragged in a deep breath and seemed to relax back in to the table. He dragged in slow deep breaths and his heart rate seemed to regulate before it suddenly jumped back up again as Oliver's head lolled sideways.

The process repeated again and again. Lance wasn't sure why, but he stayed. It was twisted, like watching a fish being pulled on to dry land before being dipped back in to a pool of water for a few quick minutes before the life giving water turned toxic. Slowly, the sleeping periods got longer. Oliver jerked and twitched, coughing up blood during the brief periods he was awake.

Each time he asked the same question, the same list of names. The list got shorter as Oliver's breathing grew more labored, but Lance was actually shocked by how long his name managed to stay on the list. It didn't escape the captain's notice that each time he asked, Felicity's name was the first on the list. She told him each time that everyone was okay, and each time he nodded exhaustedly and slipped back to unconsciousness.

It had to be called unconsciousness. This kind of torture couldn't be called sleep.

Lance drifted to sleep at one point and woke up to hear a rush of what he was pretty sure was Mandarin Chinese. "What's going on now?" he asked tiredly. "Sleep talking? What is that... just another symptom of this thing?"

"According to the internet the medical term is Somniloquy," Felicity said, not looking away from the tablet she was typing on. "It's been going for a while. He was speaking Arabic a while ago before he switched to Chinese. Then he was speaking something that my translation program identified as Kurdish but I think that might be a glitch." She glanced up, "there's been some interesting rounds of personal history. Very violent shouting stuff. Plus some quality apologizing."

Lance shrugged and leaned closer to the med table. "Guess I might want to listen in then. Seems like I've got a lot to catch up on."

What followed was a very fragmented story. Most of it was about Lian Yu in the beginning before it moved over to Hong Kong. Queen changed languages at least three times and called out lists of names, please, and cries for help. It was fascinating and horrible all at once. It was like eavesdropping on eight conversations at once.

Palmer showed up again at around three in the morning with a medical syringe in hand. He tapped it to prep the fluid. "Well, this should work as an antidote to the Vertigo. And well if it doesn't it's not like he can get worse." He pressed the needle in to Oliver's neck and injected the vial of liquid. Then he turned his attention to the monitors displaying Oliver's condition. His heart rate and blood pressure equalized and some of the muscle tension shown in his neck eased out.

Palmer sighed. "Well, I'm going to head home and try to get at least two hours of sleep before my meeting tomorrow morning. You should tell Oliver that Thea is at her boyfriend's house. I figured she would be okay there." He gave Felicity a small smile. "I'll see you tomorrow. Captain Lance."

Lance nodded back and watched him walk out the door. Then he turned back to Felicity who met his gaze. "You should probably go to," she said.

Lance weighed his options and then shook his head. "No actually." He made himself comfortable in his chair and stretched his feet out in front of him. "One of the benefits of my promotion is that I get to pick days when I just don't feel like coming in on time. The precinct will run it's self without me for a few hours."

That was how it came around that Lance slowly regained consciousness with a stiff neck and blearily cracked his eyes open. Oliver was sitting up and rubbing his wrists. Apparently lock picking was on his list of shadier abilities. Felicity was packing her purse.

"Stay?" Oliver asked. "For a minute. Just until I can change and take you home."

"Oliver," Felicity started without looking at him. "You just spent the last six hours recovering from a drug overdose that had you literally living your worst nightmare. If anyone should be driving anyone home I should probably be taking you to Thea's loft so you can sleep in an actual bed instead of on the cot in corner. I never did buy you a bed did I? In hindsight that might have been a good idea. Oh well."

Oliver sat up straight and his hands clenched around the edge of the medical table. "Felicity," he said. He said her name gently but firmly. Lance was beginning to recognize it as his way of very nicely interrupting her rambling without flat out telling her to stop talking. "I spent six hours living out my worst fear," he said once Felicity was looking at him. "My worst nightmare."

Felicity huffed impatiently. "I just said that Oliver. So?"

"So," Oliver filled in. "I saw you." He locked his eyes on her. "I watched you and everyone that I care about die over and over and over again for six hours." Lance saw out of the corner of his eye that Oliver's grip had contracted further, his knuckles turning white. "So please," he continued as Felicity took a few steps towards him. "Please let me drive you home."

Felicity walked up to him and cautiously put her hand over his, purposely prying up his fingers. Oliver let her and Lance saw him make a conscious effort to release the tension that had him clenching his other hand to avoid crushing Felicity's fingers. She gripped his other hand as well and lifted both of them up so that Oliver could see them. "Look," she said. "I'm right here. I'm fine."

"But you could easily not be," Oliver said, looking at her hands instead of her face. "Next time you might not be. In my..." he swallowed and searched for his next words. "Nightmare I was too late. There was nothing I could do and... you died."

"You, John, Roy, Laurel, Thea, and Captain Lance might day every day," Felicity told him matter of factly. "Statistically I am way safer in the foundry every night than any of you guys ever are."

Oliver let out a deep breath of air and let his head drop forward. "Felicity please just let me drive you home," he pleaded.

Felicity took his hand and moved it until it rested over her heart. "Can you feel this? This is me being okay. This is my heart and lungs working exactly the way they are supposed to in order to keep me living. Something your heart and lungs were both _not_ doing half an hour ago. If anyone should be hovering it's me. I'm a hoverer. I am practically a helicopter, and doing this was my choice. You do not get helicopter privileges with me. I am not _giving _you those helicopter privileges."

"Ray is the one with the helicopter," Oliver said, his voice taking on a self-mocking edge. "I've just got a motorcycle and some archery skills."

She nodded, basically ignoring the comment about Palmer. "And let's not forget your barrel of emotional issues and familial problems." Felicity cut herself off. "I shouldn't be bringing those things up right now when you already feel kind of crappy."

Oliver actually cracked a smile at that. Then he moved almost gingerly to wrap his arms around her. He tucked her gently against his chest and Lance got the feeling that he was watching someone who wanted to hold something precious as tightly as possible and wasn't quite sure how to do that without crushing it. Oliver caught his eye over the top of Felicity's head before breaking eye contact and deliberately burying his face in her hair. "Please," he said after a moment. "Just... please."

Felicity simply tucked her head closer in against his heart as though to make sure it was still beating. Queen ran his hands slowly over her hair and pressed a kiss against her temple. "Okay," Felicity sighed, pulling back and picking up her purse. "But you're ordering food. _I _am driving."

Oliver kept the fingers of one hand knit with his as he moved after her. "Okay."

Lance sat up and stretched. Well hell if that wasn't the most interesting result to an experience with solimnoquy he had ever seen.

**A/N: So What do you guys think? Tell me! I've been trying to make each chapter have something to do with talking. I figured Oliver sleep talking would be pretty interesting. I also just want to put on the record that I don't dislike Ray Palmer. I think he's a good guy and a decent character. I just like Olicity better. Review! Review! Review! xoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxox**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Yeah so... you know how the people who own Arrow are the ones whose ideas actually end up on TV? Well, my ideas are not those ideas. That's why I write them on this.**

In the last eight years, Quentin Lance had found out that there were an infinite number of levels of bad day. Really bad days could be worked through more easily if there had already been a truly hellish day. Very, very, very bad days were naturally worse.

There wasn't a solid measurement system to really rank the measures of bad. For a while, Lance had been able to measure the bad in alcohol. Type and quantity were both good indicators. Days when he thought about Sarah's death were normally two or three scotch days. Days when he considered his divorce where days for the plentiful consumption of cheap rum and coke. The really horrible days when both considerations were piled on top of each other were days for straight, mouth wash level intensity, brain numbing vodka.

Then he had started going to AA meetings and gotten sober. Then the badness levels of his day were measured in a combination of the number of drinks he wanted to have, and the number of hours he spent without leaving the precinct.

Each day had started to look up when he finally got over the impulse to pummel Oliver Queen every time he saw him. When his baby girl Sara had proven to be alive, things had been even better. Of course, then she had died again.

A new level of bad had been added after learning that Oliver Queen was the Arrow. He occasionally joked inside his own head that that sort of bad was his own personal DefCon Green. Really though, it was just a day were problems and set backs had reached vigilante level.

Because frankly, only people with a real gift for trouble could end up dealing with severe anaphylaxis, threats from assassins as a means of extortion, and being shot at all in one day.

The shooting had happened first. Quentin hadn't been on site when it had happened, but he had heard chatter on his police scanner and tuned in to listen. Lance had ended up wearing a hole in the floor of his office with all of the pacing as the report unfolded. He swore loudly when reports came through of Team Arrow firing stun arrows at his officers. He and Queen were going to need to have a serious conversation about appropriate levels of force. He was all for catching scumbags, but he couldn't advocate his officers getting tazed.

Of course, the criminals guilty of human trafficking had ended up unconscious and practically gift wrapped for the rest of the cops to pick up and take back to the station. Plus, Laurel was now overseeing the processing of twelve underage girls from North Korea who were being given asylum by the DA's office working with Immigration. Really it all came down to methods versus results.

One of his deputies reported that they thought they had hit the Green Arrow somewhere in the shoulder, but Lance hadn't worried much about it. Knowing Queen his entire team had been on stand bye and were already treating the injury.

He had watched once when Queen and Harper had come back to the foundry after barely escaping a fire. Watching the entire team work was something extremely impressive. Laurel had lade out a row of antibiotics while Thea had activated icepacks to soothe the burns and blankets as burns lowered their core temperatures. Felicity had applied burn cream and extra strength allow gel from a bottle in the mini fridge stocked in the foundry. Diggle had stood back a little, being sure to stay in Oliver's sight line as he gave the mission debriefing.

Whatever went wrong with that group they always seemed to manage it.

Then the reports of yet more masked warriors engaging with the vigilantes on a roof top in the glades had come through. They had escaped again and Quentin had breathed a sigh of relief. He occasionally disliked Oliver Queen, but he permanently disliked the people who had taken his little Sara and taught her to be a killer.

He had been tempted to go by Verdant to check in then, but shut down the impulse and decided to simply call the Arrow to ask if everyone was alright in the morning.

Laurel calling him to ask if he could figure out a way to clear the fastest possible route from Verdant to Starling General Hospital because Felicity had had an allergic reaction had been the last straw. Lance had sighed and hung up, letting loose a long string of profanity under his breath as he left the precinct and called the hospital to tell them to expect a girl coming in with anaphylactic shock. He had driven to the hospital and stepped into the waiting room.

Lance cast his eyes around for Felicity or any other member of team Arrow. There was no sign of any of them so Quentin instead walked up to the reception desk and began to extract his badge from his wallet. Pretty much anyone was willing to answer a question if the right person asked.

Before he could get a word out, the emergency doors whooshed open. A rain dampened Oliver Queen stood in the doorway with Felicity Smoak in his arm. "Help!" he shouted. "She's suffering severe anaphylactic shock!" Well, if there was one thing that this experience taught Captain Lance it was that shouting the words "help" and "severe" and "anaphylaxis" in an Emergency Room was as good for getting attention as shouting "bomb!" in an airport.

Medics rushed to Oliver and a door burst open as more doctors wheeled in a gurney. "She's allergic to nuts," Oliver explained quickly. "We gave her epinephrine when the reaction started but her breathing hasn't gone back to normal."

He lowered her gently on to the gurney and moved slightly back as the medics pushed in closer to Felicity. "How long since the epi?" one of them asked.

Oliver checked his watch immediately. "Fourteen minutes," he answered. The medic who had asked nodded sharply and Oliver stood back as Felicity was wheeled further in to the hospital.

Lance watched as Oliver's hand dropped limply to his sides. One of them curled and uncurled in to a fist while the fingers of his other hand rubbed against his thumb. With a deep breath, Queen seemed to force his hands to relax and quickly rubbed the heals of his hands over his eyes and back across his temples. His shoulders slumped down and Lance's immediate thought was that the kid just looked exhausted.

Then Ray Palmer walked in to the ER and every single muscle in Queen's body went as ridged as industrial strength metal. "Where is she?" Palmer asked him. "I got a call from Laurel Lance saying Felicity had an allergic reaction to nuts."

"From the Thai food you sent for dinner," Oliver said shortly.

"I didn't know-" Ray started to say before Oliver held up a hand to cut him off. "It's your job to know."

His voice was so hard and cold that Lance half worried he was about to pull a spare bow and quiver out of his back pocket and start shooting Palmer so full of them that he looked like a porcupine. Oliver's hand was alternating between a clenched fist and flexing stiffly against his side. "You were supposed to protect her."

Palmer looked like he wanted to argue for a moment before he seemed to recognize the truth of his words. "What can I do?"

"Nothing," Oliver sad flatly. He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled slowly. "Go," he said. "Go. We all screwed up and Felicity got hurt because of it." He turned and took the clipboard of medical forms one of the hospital staff handed to him. "Put on your suite," Oliver told Palmer. "Do a fly over. Just try not to kill any criminals if you can avoid it."

Then he turned and made his way to the front reception counter as he filled out the medical forms. Palmer stared at his retreating back for a moment before casting a quick glance at Lance and seemed to shrink away towards the door.

Lance didn't manage to actually catch up with Oliver to talk until nearly an hour later. He had gotten a call and had to walk through the process for obtaining correct paper work for a case with two of the more junior officers on the force. When he did find Queen again it was because he had followed the sound of a muffled crash. Queen was stepping backwards from the fist sized hole he had punched in the drywall.

Oliver flexed his hand, straightening each finger at once and running a cursory check for damage. He looked up and met Lance's eyes. "I'll get that fixed," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Lance told him. "I'm sure it's not the first hole someone's put in the hospital drywall. Besides, given what I heard earlier I think Palmer'll be all too happy to make a donation for hospital maintenance." Oliver nodded and Lance moved towards him. "I take it she hasn't recovered yet?"

Oliver shook his head and winced as a movement seemed to shift his shoulder. "You okay?" Lance checked. "I heard something on the scanner about you getting shot earlier."

He shrugged. "It was nothing," he murmured quietly. "Just a through and through. Nothing a few weeks shouldn't take care of. It's right over another one so it probably won't even scar. Well," Oliver revised. "Not one people can see anyway. Diggle took care of it."

"Jesus Christ," Lance muttered. "You're walking around with a hole in your shoulder? How did you get Felicity here anyway? I know it wasn't on that bike of yours and I sure as hell hope you weren't swinging from any buildings with her unconscious."

"Traffic was bad," Queen said flatly. "At this time of the week it would have taken too long to drive. Felicity... we never would have made it on time. Running was quicker."

Lance had to take a moment to process the fact that Oliver Queen had been able to run faster than Saturday night traffic carrying another human being with a hole in his shoulder. Apparently the kid did absolutely nothing half way including having truly crappy days. "Well," he said. "I'm going to go mainline coffee from the cafeteria. You'll call me when she's awake?"

Oliver nodded and moved off down the hallway towards the room Felicity had been assigned to. Lance moved in the other direction before coming face to face with Ray Palmer. "Palmer," he said. holding up a hand and stopping the genius in his tracks. "Oliver Queen jut punched a hole through three inches of solid drywall instead of through your head." He shook his head once. "Personally I wouldn't go looking for much more in the way of restraint."

Then he made his way to the elevator and down to the cafeteria for coffee. It tasted horrible but it was hot caffeine which was really all he had been shooting for. When he got back upstairs he paused outside of Felicity's room when he her voices talking.

The voice of a man he didn't recognize said, "You know that this was not the work of the League?"

"Yes," Oliver's voice responded. Lance couldn't see what was happening but it sounded as though he was speaking through gritted teeth.

"Oliver," the unknown man said. "I say this out of respect for our former friendship and the debt my family owes you. If you do not ascend to the calling of Ra's Al Ghul the league will move to target those people closest to you," he paused for a moment. "This girl will not be spared. Nor will any of the others."

"I know about the practices of the League Matseo," Oliver said. Lance clung to the detail. The unknown man now had a name.

Matseo sighed. "Ascend," he advised, sounding like someone who had fought the same argument over and over again. "If you do then all those you love will be protected. You will be Al Sah-him Wari Al-Ghul. The Heir to the Demon." He was silent for another moment. "She would have a role to. A demon's head can be replaced. A demon's heart must be protected at all costs. She is your heart."

The room went silent and Lance slowly pushed in to the room. Oliver nodded to him as he sat in a chair by the window. As it was slightly open, Lance guessed that that was the route the mysterious Matseo had used for an exit. The aversion people seemed to have developed to using doors was one he still didn't get. Windows, skylights, off the roof, all one hundred percent fine. Knocking on the other hand...

Felicity woke up and began to cough. Oliver poured her a cup of water and handed it to her. "Uh oh," she said when she could speak. "I know that face. Oliver, you can take credit for a lot of the crap in my life but anaphylaxis does _not _go on that list."

Oliver managed a tight smile. "I know. But let's find a new place to order in from okay?"

Felicity considered tiredly and let her head flop back against the pillows. "That I think I will consider." She screwed up her face and moved her tongue around in her mouth. "My mouth feels weird," she commented. "Am I on Benadryl? Because this-" she broke off to yawn. "Feels like Benadryl."

"Sleep," Oliver told her, reaching out and brushing a lock of wet hair that had escaped from her ponytail so that it lay behind her ear. "We'll get you checked out of here and Digg or I will take you home when you wake up."

She hummed contentedly and tipped her head in to his hand.

Lance stood up and clapped Oliver on the shoulder. "She looks like she's going to be okay kid," he said. "I'm going to get back to my apartment and try to get some shut eye. Have one of your people call me when she's home safe."

Oliver nodded and Lance paused at the doorway. "I don't know who this... uh, Matseo is. But he's got one thing right." Lance gestured at Felicity. "That girl's your heart. Now I don't agree with much of what you do, but Felicity Smoak is good. You take care of her or I'll haul your ass to Iron Heights in cuffs myself."

And with that he left.

But talk about a hell of a long day.

**A/N: So what do you think? I wanted to get a new chapter up and this has been bouncing around in my brain for a little while. I like Lance being fatherly to Felicity. Besides, it seems kind of obvious to me that if the League does whatever the Ra's wants then protecting the person he loves should be pretty high on their priority list. That seems like the kind of thing that could be a factor for Oliver. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Do I own Arrow you ask? Well then I have to answer with a very humble hell no.**

Captain Lance figured out within about half a minute of knowing Felicity Smoak that she talked. A lot. And by a lot he meant that it seemed like it might be all the time. He had originally thought that it was just a result of nerves, however a slightly more extended period of contact had proved that it wasn't. Felicity Smoak talked. It was just a fact of life.

She talked while patching injuries. She talked on a blue tooth when she drove places, and went off on random tangents through the communication links the team used. But what she talked about most was tech.

Half he time Lance had absolutely no idea what she was even saying. When Felicity was on a tech rant it was like someone was talking to him in Greek. He could see her lips moving, and hear that she was making sound, but past that he was lost.

Some of the words he could understand. Things like "firewall" "database" and "hardware" he recognized. By the time sentences like "offsite international router with a six terabyte encryption" started being thrown around Lance simply resigned himself to nodding blandly and sympathetic humming sounds.

Each other member of Team Arrow had their own method of handling the techno babble. Laurel shifted impatiently from foot to foot and avoided eye contact until the rants ended. Diggle crossed his arms, heaved a deep breath and simply watched Felicity speak with the sort of small smile an older brother would wear when their little siblings told them about their day. Roy generally huffed and interrupted with a short "In English Blondie." Ray was normally just as bad as Felicity was.

Oliver's method fell somewhere in the middle of all of these. When they had the time for Felicity to babble he merely stood over her shoulder and let the words run their course. When they were under a time crunch Oliver let her get through everything important before redirecting the word flow. He seemed to be the only one who could really pull it off. He would simply clear his throat once and say "Felicity." Then she would finish giving him the information required.

Listening to Felicity have a tech conversation with Ray Palmer generally just left Lance exchanging glances with the others that clearly broadcast the question _Do you know what the hell they're talking about? _The answer was generally in the negative.

Roy's knowledge of technology ended at how much it could be resold for after it had been misappropriated from it's original owners. Laurel could figure out what technology she needed for he job as the assistant D.A. and Diggle had a decent understanding of military hardware. From what Lance had seen, Oliver understood technology exactly as far as he needed to to use it.

To be completely fair, that capacity seemed to stretch to an exceptional capacity. Lance didn't see this actually come in to play until the day Oliver had to use Ray Palmer's suit.

Roy Harper was in jail for being the Arrow and despite efforts on the parts of both Quentin and Laurel there was nothing they could do about it. While Laurel was an assistant D.A, the actual D.A still had the final call, and while Quentin had been promoted he wasn't the chief of police. They were going to have to work out something soon though. Oliver had been unable to go out to do any sort of good and the level of pacing he had done was good enough to ware a hole in the floor.

Felicity had been discovered by the plasma shooting metahuman (don't even try getting Lance to explain that) and Oliver was getting ready to go charging out the door regardless of the cops set to tail him. Lance was ready to move to block him from leaving if he could. More for the sake of the officers who were supposed to follow him than anything else, but Palmer intervened.

Of course, that meant that Oliver had snapped. "When I go out my bow is not the weapon," he said fervently. "_I _am the weapon. It's my instincts."

"We need to figure out a way to give my tech your instincts," Palmer said.

That was what had led to Palmer calibrated his suit to react to Oliver's brain waves. What had followed had been absolutely fucking bizarre.

Watching anybody fight against absolutely nothing, not even a punching bag or a dummy looked strange. Watching Oliver move through the motions of an actual fight for survival without being in any danger what so ever was just weird. Lance wondered how that thought process would even work when Oliver wasn't even in place to feel the instincts of the fight. _If I were a homicidal metahuman with laser eyes being interrupted in the middle f my maniacal plan by a guy in a high tech super suit how would I sneak up on_ _them?_

Evidently Oliver's assessment of "from the back" turned out to be correct as he pivoted on the spot, putting all of is weight behind a punch that didn't land. Instead, Palmers fist connected with the head of the villain of the week. The fight progressed in the same manner and Lance was mentally struck by just how dangerous Oliver Queen could be. He was already lethal by himself, handing him a suit like Palmer's made him completely deadly.

Lance had always believed that the law was steady. It had to protected because it was unbiased and unyielding. But Oliver Queen and his team were operating outside of the law, and if they wanted to make an effort to not be stopped then they never would be. They were outside the law, and they were doing the right thing. Lance wasn't sure how he would ever reconcile that.

Ray Palmer had eventually returned with Felicity. Oliver had exchanged a nod with him and then shifted his gaze to Felicity. "Are you okay?" he asked. "You're not hurt?"

Felicity shook her head. "Nope. Not hurt. No more battle scars for me. Not like battle scars are a bad thing. I mean obviously I'm friends with you and Diggle and you both have scars like literally everywhere so if I did have a problem with them you two walking around shirtless would be a big problem which it really isn't so..."

"Felicity," Oliver said calmly, stopping the tirade. "Just..." he stopped to locate the right words. "Just tell me your okay."

She nodded once concisely. "Yes. I'm okay."

Lance saw Oliver's shoulders lower as he relaxed minutely. He pulled the blue tooth and sensors that had connected him to the ATOM suit off his head and placed them on the work counter with the rest of Palmer's technology. "I'll be outside," he murmured before slipping away.

Lance followed at a distance as Oliver and Diggle made their way downstairs and through the front doors. "I have to ask man," Diggle said. "What are you doing? Is this how it's going to be from now on. You'll save her life and then bail to leave her with Palmer every time?"

"It was Palmer's technology," Oliver said stiffly, ignoring the first part of the question. "He made the weapon he saved her. I just punched at empty air." His fist clenched by his side.

"None of that changes the fact that both of you look like your tearing your hearts in to pieces every time you walk out," Diggle argued.

Oliver let out a breath that was equal parts hopelessness and frustration. "Now is not the time to have this conversation Digg," he said harshly. "Roy is probably dead in a prison cell right now for pretending to be me. Thea is almost ready to fall apart and I don't know how to help her, and right now..." he trailed off for a moment. "Fighting Ra's is about as effective as fighting the air."

He took a half step farther away from Diggle and stood stiffly by the side of the building. "If Felicity is happy with Palmer then it is not my place to change that. Palmer isn't going to stop so he'll have to figure all of this out eventually. Until then-" Lance saw Oliver cut himself off and look at Diggle. "I'm never going to be able to leave Felicity in danger. Doing that... it's like being crushed, or drowning. Right now the best I can do is try to manage things."

The words floated in the air for a while and Lance shut down the urge to either pat Queen on the shoulder to show some support or smack him upside the head for sheer idiocy. Diggle simply shook his head. "Managing's not going to get you anywhere Oliver. The way I see it," he shrugged. "You might die soon, or it might not be for a long time. But if something happens, I don't think the last thing you ever tell Felicity should be a lie."

Diggle stood and Lance backed up as the former bodyguard took a step back towards the door. He paused before leaving. "I just think you both deserve better than that."

He stepped inside and passed Lance without showing any sign of worry over the fact that Lance had heard the entire conversation. He simply waited outside the elevator door as the floor numbers ticked down, falling easily back in to the habits of a military man and bodyguard. Oliver slid back through the door and waited there.

Lance noted mentally that his footsteps made no sound against the tile floor, nor did the fabric of his clothes as he moved. He wondered briefly when he had learned that particular skill, and noted with a jolt that Sara had moved the same way after she had returned. It was as though the two of them were somehow unattached to the ground they walked on, like the world had a different grip on them than it did on everyone else. Oliver Queen moved through the world like a solid shadow.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open with a quiet wooshing sound. Felicity's bright voice flew down the hallway in a quick bouncing rhythm. It was full of discussion of sensors and fiber optics and appropriate armor paneling. Something about flexible free movement padding for the inside of the ATOM suit could be understood but most of the conversation was completely lost on Lance.

Captain Lance glanced over at Oliver.

Queen wasn't speaking or moving. He wasn't even smiling. There was just a sort of softening of his features as he watched Felicity come down the hallway towards him.

Then Ray Palmer stepped around the corner and Oliver's face quickly closed down again. Lance could actually watch as the stillness of his body shifted to a colder and more chilling form. He waited just long enough for Felicity to see that he was there, giving Palmer a nod before turning and walking out the door.

Lance watched Felicity's face. It slowly seemed to lose some of the bright enthusiasm for a moment before she turned back to Palmer and fixed her happy expression back in place.

Quentin shook his head and mentally cursed at Oliver Queen. "Brain dead Moron of an idiot can you actually be Queen?," he muttered.

**Author's Note: So what did you guys think? Tell me! I tried to tie this one in a little closer to the episode from last week WHICH I AM STILL NOT DONE PROCESSING. I wanted to make a way for this FanFic to develop along with the TV show. Olicity next week! Who else feels completely unprepared for that?! Review for me! xoxxoxoxoxxooxoooxxoxooxoxxoxoxxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxxoxo**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Arrow emotionally scars me a little more each week. If I owned it that would not be happening. No masochism here. Although I am putting myself through classes that end up requiring like at least six hours of homework each night...**

If there is one thing that Lance and Oliver have in common, it's their lack of ability to actually use words. Of course, that very short list excluded the ven diagram of people they both loved who were now dead or suffering. Putting aside that depressing visual aid, the two men share a complete and utter inability to actually utilize the English language.

It was a very particular issue that only ever seemed to flare up when being able to talk could have been really important. Telling people you cared about important things generally involved actually talking. Lance had long ago realized that talking apparently didn't work well for him. It would appear that Oliver Queen had a similar problem.

With Lance, this problem had ultimately resulted in divorce. This had ended up developing in to full blown inability to communicate with his family and a very good working non-verbal relationship with multiple bartenders. From there he had apparently moved on to a position where in pretty much everyone he considered someone he had any kind of relationship with felt the need and the right to lie to him.

Lance was essentially two steps a way from saying fuck human communication and committing to a life of hermitism. He could live without technology. Remote mountain tops were looking pretty good.

As it was, Lance had found himself generating to the communicational level of post-it notes. That had actually been a major method for a little while. When his kids had been little, he had left little yellow notes in red Sharpie in their lunch boxes with reminders about things like important tests. In Laurel's case the notes had included things like grocery reminders. Sara's notes had more closely involved a spare copy of her schedule and ballet classes.

After the divorce, the notes had been mostly things for Laurel. "Back by seven. Stir Fry in the microwave." "You need a better lock on your door. A guy should be by tomorrow." Those kinds of notes piled up between them.

With Oliver Queen, Lance had originally noted that he fairly easily avoided direct communication simply because in his life it wasn't necessarily a requirement. Lies worked if they were even halfway believable and money bought the other half. When the truth was a definite requirement it came in tiny little tough nuggets. Any direct communication was achieved with a thick layer of overworked charm.

It had seemed when he first got back that nothing had changed. Queen still seemed to slip past every sort of honest method of communication. He flashed bright smiles and glib answers to the press with a sort of ease that made Lance feel vaguely nauseous. When Laurel claimed he had changed Lance shut down that implication with a definitive slam.

Working with Team Arrow had begun to show him something different. Oliver spent most of his time quiet. Lance noted that he had different modes of communication for different situations.

Anytime a mission was involved his words became clipped and economic. He had gone from someone who used words to distract people to someone who deliberately used as few as possible. Lance could understand that. In a crisis words took time, time that wasn't always available. When he dealt with press he seemed to flip on the old version of him like someone who had thrown a switch.

Taking over Queen Consolidated had thrown the kid into a matured sort of perception. It was borderline freakish. It was almost like watching a high speed growth film of a tree. It started out small and scrappy and then suddenly showed up looking like a full grown tree. Somehow though, there was something even further off. Lance couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was until he watched a press conference.

Queen was talking about the future of Queen Consolidated. He wore a straight face, a suite neatly pressed, matching, and expensive. He looked directly at the camera with dark blue eyes and said, "Hopefully in the coming years, the new innovations of the applied sciences division will help t paint a brighter picture for the future of Starling City.

A cold shiver had gone up Lance's spine. Suddenly he had known exactly what was wrong with Oliver Queen's business persona. It was an exact imitation of his father.

Watching him switch from version to version, avoiding honest communication each time was like watching a snake repeatedly shed it's skin and then grow a seamless new version. That he could crawl into the skins of others was even creepier.

As the Arrow he seemed to simply settle in to a skin of leather and question marks. But in that mode he seemed to have a different way to communicate with each member of his team. And each and everyone of them was somehow shockingly honest.

With John Diggle Lance had seen Oliver seem to communicate with a system of hand signals. It made sense knowing that Diggle had been in the military. He communicated with Roy on a similar system only slower and more direct. It was sort of like the laymans version of military hand signals.

Oliver had communicated with Sara based primarily on body language. Small tilts of the head or a specific cant of the shoulders said which way to go and what was happening. Once, Lance had seen the Arrow ad the Canary simply switch to Chinese to have a conversation, not bothering to disguise their communication any further.

Watching Oliver try to communicate with Laurel was like watching someone try to drag a boulder through mud. Up a mountain. Through a river. And maybe across a field too. Even at first it had been painful. As in the I-am-trying-incredibly-hard-to-not-strangle-my-daughter's-living-scum-incarnate-boyfriend kind of painful. Now it consisted of watching Oliver duck around barbs and pointed questions and awkwardly mumble his way through stilted replies.

It was such a drastic contrast to watch how Oliver seemed to interact with Felicity Smoak. Lance noted that it wasn't necessarily that he talked more with he than he did with anyone else, he was just more invested in listening. When he did speak it was quiet. His voice seemed to soften on the edges and the guard he normally used seemed to drop away.

That didn't change the fact that there were some words he just didn't seem able to say.

One night at the foundry Oliver had sat at the counter he used to sharpen arrows. He had been rubbing his temples for the last ten minutes and Lance was about two seconds away from shoving an Excedrin and a bottle of water down his throat. Possibly a sedative to. Lance wasn't sure when exactly Queen had developed an aversion to painkillers, but it apparently was a maintained personal policy.

Felicity swung around in her chair. "Right," she said. "That's done for the night. I have the program running, and I'll probably be past the firewall by tomorrow morning."

Oliver sat up straighter and laid both palms flat on the table top. He gave her a small, tired smile. "You should go home. Get some rest. With the league coming I have a feeling we may not be getting that many opportunities."

She nodded and tucked her coat back around her shoulders. It got caught behind her and she struggled tiredly for a moment before simply stopping and looking at him. Oliver sighed and pulled himself up to standing. He gestured for Felicity to turn and after she complied Lance saw Oliver make quick work of detangling the jacket from her arms and rearrange it around her shoulders. A slight tap on the shoulder was the signal for he to turn back around.

Then she spun and started slightly. Lance guessed that from her startled expression she probably hadn't realized she was quite as close to him as she was. Oliver's hands moved, not as quickly as he might have moved normally but still faster than most people probably would have been able to and caught her just under her shoulders to help her balance.

He didn't let go immediately and Felicity didn't step back. Oliver reached lightly back around and pulled Felicity's hair out of her collar, brushing it around her shoulders. He simply stood still for a moment like that. Lance noted that he wasn't looking straight at Felicity, he was looking at where her hair tangled around his fingers. He looked vaguely confused, as though his mind was a little too tired to try to process what exactly didn't make sense about the image.

"Hey," Felicity said suddenly. Oliver looked up and she frowned up at him, lifting a hand to angle his head. "One of your pupils is like, gargantuan." Oliver made a non-committal noise but Felicity didn't let him look away. "How bad of a headache do you have right now?"

Oliver blinked and shook his head. "It's nothing. Temporary migraine. It'll pass in a while."

Felicity backed away from him and reached in to her purse. She drew out a bottle of Excedrin and shook out two pills. She handed them to Oliver who took them with out question. "I've got water somewhere," Felicity said. Oliver had already swallowed the pills dry. "That wasn't quite as gross as you stabbing a needle in to your leg but it still ranks up there pretty high," she informed him.

Oliver shrugged. "It works."

She nodded and took a step back. "I should go." She turned and began to make her way up the stairs leading out of the basement.

"Hey Felicity," Oliver called after her. "Thank you."

That moment was the first time that Lance realized that Oliver Queen is good at thank yous. He says them with a sort of fervent sincerity that carries it's own weight and echoes off the walls ad ceilings. But he sucks at saying good bye.

* * *

That's why it didn't surprise him when they're all standing in the desert in Nanda Parbat, and both of them refuse to say the words.

"We're always saying goodbye to each other," Lance heard Felicity say in a small voice. He had turned and begun to move away with Thea, Diggle, and Merlyn. Some moments were supposed to be private.

He still heard Oliver's next words. "So let's not say goodbye this time." Lance risked a glance back and saw that they weren't really touching apart from the kiss. Oliver's body was just sort of bent forward around hers. The kiss shakes Lance a bit and even he as unromantic as he is realizes that the moment is heartbreaking.

It's sweet, and sad, and tender. It's the kind of moment you catch in dramatic movies with epic music in the background. It's not supposed to be the kind of moment that's only going to end. Also not the kind that people are supposed to watch.

With that thought in mind, Lance turned back around and started walking after the other people involved in this particular horror show escape movement. For a few minutes he wasn't sure weather or not Felicity would end up following them. It's actually kind of surprising when she does. There were tears in her eyes but she was didn't know where the League of Assassins stood on bringing along the love of your life, but he was pretty sure that they would be willing to make an exception for the new "heir to the demon" or whatever the hell Queen's new title was.

A kiss like that was a hell of a thing to use to mark a goodbye.

Lance guessed that that was just another sign. A sign that goodbye may be a small word, but it is definitely one that when applied to people he loves Oliver Queen just can't say.

**A/N: So what do you guys think? I know this took a while for me to post but I have been given proof recently that homework really actually does come from the innermost circle of hell. I think the last episode of this nearly broke twitter! Olicity was trending! :) Review for me! I'll probably have another chapter up next weekend. xoxoxoxoxooxoxooxoxoxooxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxooxxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. Zip, zilch, nada.**

For as long as Quentin Lance had known Oliver Queen, he had known that he was not a particularly good liar. He went around hiding, projecting an arrogant grin that generally just made people back off. He avoided telling the truth, but most of the time he didn't flat out lie. Besides, when he did it was easy enough to tell.

Lance had long felt that if the Queens hadn't been rich not a single one of them would have been able to get away with a single lie their entire lives. Well, very possibly Robert could have. You don't get to be the owner of a multi-billion dollar corporation through honesty and hard work alone, and Moira Queen could probably give most CIA NOC agents a run for their money.

But Lance had always thought that the Queen kids could barely lie to save their lives.

Thea was mostly just too young to know that lying was a thing people could do at first. Then when she had grown up Thea Queen had pretty much just decided that you could shock people more with complete and utter honesty.

Oliver had always been a little bit different. When he lied he did it with a sort of mocking smile, like he knew everyone knew he wasn't lying well but he was daring them to challenge it. Lance had immediately felt like this was exactly the sort of pompous ass hole behavior of someone who had figured out early that they had enough money to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted and wasn't shy about using it.

What Oliver did more often than lie was simply omit. The kid had eventually gotten smart enough to figure out that if you were a bad liar keeping secrets it was best to just not talk about it. If the sin of omission could send you to hell then in Lance's book Oliver Queen had earned a ticket before he had learned to legally drive.

Then he had spent five years doing God only knows what.

Suddenly, the immature kid who hadn't been able to lie no matter what had been obliterated and replaced by a man who had learned to fix his face into a mask with all the blank rigidity of a concrete statue. The old omitting playboy had been thrown on over the top to hide the new liar. But Lance could still tell that he was lying.

The Captain had to admit that he had been grudgingly impressed even in his anger that Oliver Queen had somehow become able to beet a polygraph. That sort of thing took dedication and practice. More than that though, it took total and utter control. The version of Oliver Queen that had come back from that island was good at control.

Even Queen's movements were sort of clipped and direct. They reminded Lance of the movements of a boxer. There was a swift economy of movement without a single modicum of energy wasted. The formerly slouched posture Oliver had used had transferred to a militarily straight back and set shoulders.

Slowly, Lance began to work out when Oliver was lying. When Queen halted and stumbled over his words it was the truth. When he used short, simple words that was generally the truth to. It was just more a truth that lacked emotion.

When Oliver's words flowed easily. When there was no paused between one and the next and he looked at the person he was addressing with a neutral, manufactured openness he was lying like a sailor swears.

By the time Lance had figured out that Oliver Queen was in fact the Arrow, the realization that Oliver Queen had been convincingly lying on a near sociopathic level had hit him over the head like a ton of bricks. Lance supposed that when you were actually lying to save your life, you started to get really damn good at it.

Honesty was like a rare commodity in Oliver Queens life, one he only granted to his immediate and most trusted friends. From what he had gathered, Lance figured that Diggle had pretty much figured out the truth about Oliver when the man had hit an attacker from ten yards away with an unweighted and unbalanced kitchen knife. He wasn't sure on the exact details about how Felicity had learned the truth, but he knew it involved syringes full of "energy drinks" and laptops full of bullet holes culminating in Oliver getting shot and bleeding out in the back of her car.

But with pretty much everyone else Oliver Queen post-Island has learned to lie with a sort of bland, wide eyed, sincerity. He lied to police, his sister, and his mother for absolutely as long as possible. Lance got it to a level. He didn't tell the people he loved about most elements of his own job because a lot of it was just too ugly to show. He had made lying easy.

More than being a liar, Lance noted that Oliver has developed a sort of sixth sense about when he's being lied to. There's a little hard grain of truth to the saying "it takes on to know one."

After some careful observation, Lance figured out a certain Oliver has to being lied to. It was just one Thea Queen had been kidnapped by Slade Wilson. The hostage negotiator had gotten a call and then come to talk to Moira and Oliver. The man had gone over to them and tried to spin some story about how everything was going to be alright. Oliver had let the negotiator speak, and then simply tipped his head to the side.

Lance would never be able to erase the image of total, unforgiving, cold, blankness in his eyes. His voice had been like velvet over concrete. Something vaguely civil and soft covering something unyielding and hard when he said, "So what exactly do you suggest we do?"

The hostage negotiator hadn't had an answer. He had stumbled over a feeble reply while Moira had fretted and Oliver had simply stood there, his expression completely unchanging. You couldn't bull shit a bull shitter and Lance had realized that even before the island Queen had more bullshit to hand out than any other farmer. It came with the territory of being a public figure. The Queens had simply indoctrinated Oliver with the idea that if you had to give out bullshit, the least you could do was sell it as fertilizer and turn a freaking profit.

Whenever anyone lied to Oliver Queen Lance saw him use that same blank look and tilt of the head. Then he would proceed to place the words of his replies like traps and landmines in the trenches. At first, this had infuriated Lance. He had seen it as a sign of misplaced arrogance in thinking that being able to spot a lie from someone else made him any better than the first liar. As that fell away Lance had begun to realize that it was something more. It was Queen's first line of defense.

But Lance wasn't going to be playing poker with him anytime soon that was for damn sure.

In fact, playing poker with Team Arrow at all was just generally a major no-no.

He had sat in on a game once, and had at first walked in on Roy Harper shoving extra playing cards into his pockets, up his sleeves, and in to every other orifice of clothing he could possibly work out. "You realize that's cheating right Harper?" Lance had asked with a skeptical expression.

Roy looked at him with an expression of almost manic determination. "It's the only way," he said fervently. "Besides, I dress up in red leather and engage in vigilantism each night after nearly a decade of being a pick pocketing street thug. What part of that makes you think I'm the kind of person who cares about cheating at poker?"

He pushed past Lance who shook his head and simply went to watch the game.

Roy deployed his cheat cards with shameless aplomb. John Diggle proved that years and years of being in the military had forged him in to the kind of man who could hold his own in Texas Holdem with the best of them. He had sat calmly, sipping a beer and betting with military precision. John hadn't had the best cards or the best cheating technique but he had been the one to bet the smartest, and had bowed out gracefully at the opportune moment. Laurel had failed epically, giving up around the same time Oliver raised the stakes for the second time and Roy pulled an Ace of spades from a location Lance would rather not think about.

Eventually, the game had boiled down to Felicity counting cards and Oliver watching her with bland, observant eyes. The two of them went back and forth before Felicity finally came out as the victor.

As the others were leaving, Lance witnessed something interesting.

Felicity split out the money and handed half of it back to Oliver. He had looked up at her with a small smile. "Thank you."

"Thank you," Felicity replied. "This is like, the best way you have ever thought of to make money. It's really just taking advantage of your natural abilities to show limited emotion plus my brain. I'm starting to feel bad about taking money from our friends though. Maybe we can expand this. I'm sure we can find that underground casino again."

Oliver hummed. "Might not be the best idea considering you purposefully got cheating and I shot up the place last time we were there."

She nodded. "Probably true." She stretched up on her tiptoes and patted him on the shoulder. "I so would have crushed you if we were playing for real though. You suck at lying."

Oliver smiled up at her almost sadly. "Only with you."

* * *

Oliver Queen figured out how to pull a poker face over his five year stint. That face becoming permanent though, that was another matter. The first time Lance ever saw Al Sah-him that was what it looked like. A version of Oliver Queen who had developed a permanent poker face.

Something about it was even more extreme though. Before, the face had just been a face. It had been a mask, as much as the one Queen strapped over his eyes every night. Now it was his actual expression. Dead eyed and void of anything.

"The Oliver Queen you knew is dead," Oliver said coldly. Even his speech pattern had changed. Not more tightly controlled, just flatter. There was nothing left to control. "Grieve for him, then move on. He is gone."

Felicity slowly walked across the rooftop they were standing on. She stepped cautiously like he was worried that the ground could be about to cave in under her feet. It was an image to behold, a tiny blonde girl walking towards a mountain of a man armed to the teeth and ready to kill at the first wrong twitch. A butterfly moving towards a snake.

"You might be almost _completely _different from who you used to be," she started. "But you are not dead Oliver."

Oliver didn't move. He stayed frozen. Then Felicity gently reached up and pressed her hand against his cheek. Oliver continued to stare blankly at her, as though some sort of connection in his mind was bending and snapping, failing to actually get there. "You're Oliver," she emphasized again. "You are Oliver Queen. You are still the man that I believe in. And dear _God _are you a horrible liar."

Lance watched in near shock as Oliver's eyes seemed to slowly slip shut. His head tipped sideways for a moment, dropping in to her palm. He watched as the newest and strongest lie that Oliver Queen had ever let define himself shatter to the floor.

The almost imperceptible sound of an Arrow being released from a bow sounded through the night. Oliver wrenched his head away and moved quickly to the edge of the building. His blank mask was firmly back in place. "Only with you," he said. Lance thought it sounded like the words were chocking him. "I am only ever a bad liar with you."

Then he stepped off of the edge of the building, plummeting towards the street, away from the light of the moon and in to the darkness below.

**A/N: How did I do? I worked on this chapter for a couple days longer than I normally do. I liked the idea just noticing how much of the lying Oliver actually does on this show even though people keep saying he's horrible at it. I also learned recently that humans aren't technically psychologically programmed for honesty. Review for me! xoxxxoxooxoxoxoooxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxox**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: No. I own nothing. If I did you would be watching my version of things on TV every Wednesday. That said, this chapter is kind of my speculations put in to this season and moved around to help me deal with the major freak out I had over some things from the last episode.**

Detective Lance had always known that there were things he didn't know about Felicity Smoak. He had of course done a background check when she had learned that she was working for the Arrow. However, conventional state permitted and legalized background checks didn't exactly provide all the gory details. It was more of a rough outline.

Working with her had taught him more. He had learned little things that came out in long babbles and small moments he hadn't necessarily been supposed to witness. One particular babble had simultaneously taught him that terabytes of data were hard to get through quickly, she drank too much sugar with her coffee and somewhere along the way a strange phobia of kangaroos had developed.

Some things shouldn't be expanded on or questioned.

He also learned that Oliver Queen new everyone of these details and the stories behind them. He knew countless little things and acted on them everyday. Lance noticed them gradually.

The first was evidenced in the fact that each late night in the foundry resulted in coffee with too much sugar, and Thai food that was permanently sans peanuts. All of the arrows and heavy metal projectiles in the foundry were organized in careful rows. Normally this might have merely been a sin of neatness or over active control issues, but eventually Lance noticed that each arrow head pointed carefully away from Felicity's desk.

This didn't really mean anything to Lance until the day Felicity had stepped on a nail without shoes on. She had sworn and hopped around on one foot for about six seconds. It took that long for Oliver to be next to her and taking her weight. He had scooped her up and carried her over to the medical table.

Oliver examined the cut on the bottom of her foot. "Diggle?" he called after a moment. "Check the nail. There's blood here. If the nail has rust we need a tetanus shot."

Diggle nodded and looked down, scanning the ground. He straightened up a moment later with a slightly bloodied and definitely rusted nail in hand. "Definitely rusted."

Oliver nodded and looked at Roy. "Fill up a syringe would you?"

Roy began to beat a hasty retreat just as Felicity pulled a face. "No thanks," he said. "Arrows and street scumbags I'll deal with whenever," he glanced at Felicity. "I'll take down a murderer for you any day but I am not touching a needle. Sorry Blondie."

"No problem," Felicity said quickly. "I hate pointy things. Which I know is a little ironic given what we do here but still..."

That was when Lance realized that the arrows being pointed always away from Felicity was more than just some sort of compulsion to keep things organized and in place. It was Oliver Queen acknowledging a little thing. It was also the rest of the team wanting the Foundry to feel safe, as safe as it could.

Of course, for all of the things Lance managed to learn about Felicity, for everything Felicity told him, there were about a million things he didn't know. Also, for the million he didn't know about Felicity there were about ten million he no longer knew about Olive Queen. He had known Queen since childhood so that was frankly just depressing.

Lance had come to expect curve balls from all of Team Arrow. Leather clad vigilantes kind of meant that curve balls were becoming more normal than regular pitches. Still though, he had to say that he had not seen this one coming.

Ray, Felicity, Diggle, Laurel, and Malcolm Merlyn had all gone off to Nanda Parbat. When Lance had found out that Merlyn was going along with them he ha put his foot down. He had never liked Laurel charging off in to danger but he had at least gotten used to it. Well if by gotten used to it you meant that he had resigned himself to the fact that there was nothing he could do about it.

Now, with his oldest and only remaining daughter going off to face the very same League of people who had taken his youngest away, there was no way in hell he was letting her leave without him. That was what had led him to a long trek through the desert and to standing in front of Ras Al Ghul and Oliver Queen. Respectively probably the two most deadly men in the world.

"The wedding is my own," Oliver said. Lance's eyebrows shot up. His brain had hypothesized a thousand different scenarios abut what could have happened to Oliver after joining the league, but arranged marriage hadn't exactly popped up. Murder, death, killing, etc. Those things had all been ones he had considered in the back of his mind. Eternal commitment arranged by a third party had not so much been a consideration.

"I am betrothed to Nyssa Al Ghul," Oliver stated. His voice wasn't so much cold as it was blank. It was as though the idea of being married was irrelevant. Becoming Ras was important, marriage was more of a stop off on the plane ride of pre-charted life that Oliver was taking a layover at before moving on.

"Perhaps not," Ras said.

Oliver's face barely betrayed any surprise, his eyes merely widened a fraction as he regarded the Demon's Head. Lance felt his own eyebrows shoot up. Everyone else who had merely looked stunned at the announcement of marriage before now also looked confused. Felicity looked like she was trying to figure out a way to pull her jaw up off of the floor.

Ra's walked closer to her and Diggle and Palmer who were standing closest to her closed ranks around her. Laurel moved to her side and even Tatsu the women Merlyn said was supposed to be proof shifted closer. Lance himself fought the urge to move. The dark eyes of Ra's reminded Lance of a snake so he was treating the men that way. Avoid all sudden movements.

That instinct turned out to be a good one. In the next moment Ra's had nodded to a group of armed league members standing in the background and Laurel, Diggle, and Palmer were swiftly pulled from the room. One of the men looked from Lance to Ra's but the man dismissed him with a swift gesture. "Leave him. There is no reason the old man can not bear witness to this."

Lance bristled but stomped down on the comment he wanted to throw back_ who you calling old mister I have a magical pit of eternal life? _Instead he said, "What exactly am I witnessing."

"The truth," Ra's said turning his attention back to Felicity. "You have lovely hair child," he said. "You dye it I believe?"

Felicity threw up her hands. "How is that even a relevant thing! I can get you people knowing my name and that I'm good with IT but I can not get you knowing my hair care protocol. Unless..." She jabbed her index finger at Oliver. "I keep your vigilantism secrets for three years and somehow the one secret I ask you to keep you tell to the head of Evil Incorporated!?"

Lance didn't know where this was going but even he agreed that the hair question was pretty much out of the blue. He didn't know how the League worked, but he was pretty sure that hair dye was not an offence or concern. If it was then it was a sure sign that more people in the world needed to be deemed worthy of death by highly trained killer.

Now that wasn't a thought Lance had ever though he was going to have.

"You speak as your mother did," Ra's said.

Felicity froze, looking as though more words were waiting to be spoken but had gotten trapped on her tongue. Lance saw Oliver stiffen. In fact, he didn't so much stiffen as go utterly and completely still as every muscle in his body froze. In the next second he seemed to force himself to relax.

"Constant and truthful and always with your hands. They never cease moving," Ra's continued. "It was one of the things I loved about her."

Felicity spluttered. "You?" she questioned. "My mother? Loved? What the-"

Lance's mind was racing, putting together the last few sentences. The detective half of his brain was swiftly connecting the dots even as the other half of him swiftly tried to shut it down.

Ra's turned and looked to Oliver. "I told your former associate John Diggle that when I was offered the position in which you now find yourself I had a wife and a child. I was given the choice of either watching them die or turning and walking from their lives without a word. That was a lie. These events did not occur before I was brought in to the league. It happened a mere twenty years ago."

The Demon's Head turned and faced Felicity and Lance. "It was a mistake, a moment or rather three years of weakness. The Ra's at the time allowed it briefly before sending a denizen with the message that it was time to return. The choice remained the same and I left that night, leaving behind a beautiful young women, and a daughter."

He reached out and took hold of one of Felicity's hands, holding it so tightly that even if she hadn't been too shocked to move she wouldn't have been able to pull away. He placed a small kiss to the back of her knuckles in the kind of gesture hat belonged to an older era. "It seems as though we are now reunited my Daughter."

Felicity pried her fingers away numbly mouth hanging open. She stumbled slightly as she backed up tripping in to Lance's side. Quentin took her hand holding it tightly, hoping to offer some form of support. "How are we suppose to know you're not lying?" Lance demanded. The detective part of his brain had already worked out that the Assassin's story fit with what he knew about Felicity. Granted what he knew was mostly to do with the fact that her father had left without a word when she was a child.

Plus a few other little details that may or may not have been attained illegally. Including a scarily high IQ and a large selection of abilities to do with intelligence that no offense meant probably did not come from her mother. Besides, she definitely did talk with her hands.

Ra's was still talking. He had turned back to Oliver. "I said I wanted to unite our families through a marriage between you and my daughter. It would now appear that I have more than one daughter. I assume that this option is preferable?"

Oliver was silent for a long moment before he opened his mouth. "I will do as you wish. As I have been since arriving here."

It was convincing. To almost anyone else the words would have sounded utterly and completely flat. But to Lance it was almost exactly the same tone of voice Oliver had used a life time ago when Robert Queen had signed Oliver up for an introduction to business course. He had said, "whatever you want Dad," in exactly the same way.

Felicity's hand had gone freezing cold and trembling in his and Lance tightened his hand further around her fingers. "Then it is set," Ra's said in the manner of someone who ha just made a satisfying business deal. "I see no reason to change the going timeline. I shall expect to see you later tonight Al Saheem." He nodded to Felicity. "Daughter mine."

"What about your other daughter?" Lance asked as he was leaving. "You know, the daughter you didn't abandon for a life of organized murder? The one who loved Sara."

Ra's stopped and looked at him, meeting his gaze. "I was so very sorry about your daughter," he said. Strangely, Lance thought that he sounded almost sincere. "I must say that she was refreshing, though I never saw the killer in her. Her death was... unfortunate. We would have honored her here. We still might. Any death at the hands of Malcolm Merlyn is one to be regretted."

Then he left, taking another one of the guards with him.

"Apparently we're getting married," Oliver said flatly. Felicity launched forward and sent her hand flying up towards her face. The first one landed with a loud crack and Lance moved forward. He wasn't quite sure weather or not he was going to get between the two or help Felicity beet Queen in to a bloody pulp on the ground. Given all of the shit he had pulled lately it wasn't like it would have been undeserved. He wasn't even sure how hard Oliver would be fighting back. He had a bet going on not very.

He didn't get much of a chance to find out though because the next slap Felicity tried to land was stopped cold. Oliver's hand flashed up, catching the hit with his forearm and then moving to wrap his fingers around her wrist, keeping it immobile. Oliver looked down at her meeting Felicity's eyes with an expression that was not so much blank as it was unreadable. He glanced over at the remaining guards in the corner. "Give me a moment with my betrothed please."

The hooded man nodded and vanished like a mirage.

Felicity was moving the minute he left hitting outwards at Oliver's chest. He took every single one of the hits without making a single movement to her. He was saying something but lance couldn't quite here what it was over Felicity's shouting. Venting everything until her words started to become impossible to distinguish through the tears that had started pouring down her cheeks.

Finally Oliver caught her around the waist and pulled her in against his chest holding her there and keeping her still. Her head pressed in to his heart and Oliver's forehead fell to her hair. Finally Lance could make out the words that Oliver had been repeating. "I'm so sorry," he said. Repeating the words again ad again. "I'm so _so _sorry."

It was jarring. To watch Oliver go from completely lacking in emotion to the most human Lance thought he had ever actually seen him. "Sorry for what exactly?" Felicity asked in a shaky muffled voice. "For going totally dark side and abandoning all of the people you claim to love and care about, or the fact that we're here at evil HQ. Or how about for the fact that my long lost father is apparently the embodiment of pure evil and has now arranged our marriage because frankly any of those things deserves a pretty killer apology."

She sighed and pulled away a step. "That pun was highly unintentional given the circumstances," she clarified. Oliver's fingers twitched almost convulsively, holding her within an arms length of him and refusing to let go.

"All of it," Oliver said fervently. "I had a plan but this..." he shook his head. "I didn't see it coming." He bit down on his lower lip. "I thought you all might be coming to destroy the virus and I knew better than to trust Malcolm so I made plans to get you out. I'm going to need to figure out a way to adjust those now."

"Well I'm sorry that my Earth shattering discovery threw an evil father sized wrench in to your maniacal plan machine" Felicity shot back. Then she stilled for a moment. "Holy crap I have a half sister," she realized. "That's another thing, you were going to marry Nyssa!"

Oliver's jaw tightened and Lance got the feeling he was seriously wishing that the League provided Excedrin. "I didn't want to," he bit out. "I didn't think it was going to come up either but I had to be able to adapt. It wouldn't have been legal or even _real _but if it made Ra's trust me yes I would have done it."

Felicity was dead silent for a moment in the echo of that particular truth. "And now you're marrying me."

"I love you," Oliver said, letting the statement settle in the air. "I understand if you hate me for this, all of it but I-"

"Why can't you stop?" Felicity demanded.

"Because I'm selfish," Queen said.

Lance felt like he should leave. This seemed like it was private but there was no where for him to go.

Oliver was still talking. "I want to be able to give you everything you want, but I can not tell you that I don't love you. I won't. In a life time of choices, loving you is the most selfish one that I have ever made, and I can't unmake it." He stepped forward, closing the distance between he and Felicity. One hand came up cautiously, brushing tears off of her face. "Doing what Ra's wants will keep you alive, and I can't watch you die."

"What about the others?" Felicity challenged. "Diggle and Laurel?"

"They'll hate me," Oliver admitted immediately. "And they have a right to. So do you. Kidnapping Lyla and leaving Sara alone, it was..."

Felicity cut him off. "Unthinkable?" she filled in. "Yeah it was."

Oliver released her hand as she made to draw it back and Lance noted his fingers clench reflexively. "I mad a choice," he ground out. "A choice between you hating me and being alive or being on good terms in the afterlife. I picked the option that meant I didn't have to bury anyone else I loved."

On a level Lance could understand that. Oliver Queen had made a decision between maybe loosing people temporarily and definitely loosing people permanently. Not necessarily a choice with good and healthy results for him, but definitely a more life like choice for everyone else.

There was a long moment of silence before Felicity spoke. "So what happens now. With all of this? What do we do? If we get out of this."

Oliver sighed and Lance could practically see his shoulders tense and then slump as though another weight had been added to an immense loud. He reached out slowly and took both of her hands in to his slowly. He pulled one of them up to his face and kissed her palm. "If this works and we live then I will give you whatever you ask me for. If it's space I will give it to you. If it's a freaking white wedding I will give you and Thea my credit card and a bridal magazine and say I do in front of an alter and all of my friends."

He brought her other hand up to his heart and cradled it there. "And if you want to leave," he murmured quietly. "If you want to get into a car together and drive away from all of this while we try to work out what we both want then I'll do it. I'll even drive." The utter and complete sincerity in his voice almost made Lance whistle. It wasn't everyday you heard someone pledge that kind of dedication.

"Driving away," Felicity said quietly. "That actually sounds kind of nice. Though we are going to have to talk to Thea. Maybe the two of us can start a surprise evil fathers club. We might end up with a surprisingly large membership basis."

The stress slowly fell away from Oliver's shoulders and a bright almost impossible smile broke across his face as he leaned down and kissed her. Lance looked away. Some things were part of conversations he didn't need to overhear.

**A/N: So how was that? I know it's not exactly cannon and it might not even be the best chapter I've written but I seriously had to do damage control on last week's episode before I even tried to watch the one next week. If they give me something more to work with next week the next chapter might be more in cannon. It was just an idea that wouldn't really leave me alone after the conversation Ra's had with Diggle about his old family in 3x20. Hope you all liked it! Review for me! xoxoxooxoxoxxooxxoxoxooxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxxoxoxoxo**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: So... No. I seriously don't own any of the characters or anything that qualifies as the property of DC or the CW. If I did then you guys would be watching this on TV and someone else who felt that I had failed to fulfil their dreams of what the show should be would be writing a fan fiction. **

**Note: This is the corrected version of this chapter. Kiwi1981 was super awesome and corrected the German in this chapter. All credit for the correct use of the language goes to her.**

Never let it be said that the members of Team Arrow didn't know how to multi-task.

Lance had generally noted that Oliver maneuvered jobs. He did it with quick and sometimes brutal efficiency that would rival a battleship admiral.

In fact, it was an ability that Lance had noticed that Oliver had even as a young child. He had been an energetic child who bounced from task to task and off of the walls and ceilings like a super powered bouncy ball doing an imitation of the Energizer Bunny. When Thea had come along when Oliver had turned ten he had alternated between speeding up to give her something to chase, and slowing down to let her catch up.

Those moments of slow down had been some of the most truthful moments Lance had seen in Oliver's young life. They had showed that he wasn't just a rich little boy. He was a kid who loved his sister.

Oliver had been the kind of kid who could dribble a soccer ball, carry a full conversation, and learn to whistle all at once. In fact that particular example wasn't even one Lance was using for an example to prove a point. It was an observation he had made after one particularly interesting little league practice at the same park as one of Laurel's early softball games.

Queen's teachers had simply called it attention issues. None of them had gone so far as to call it ADHD. They had merely recommended more sporting activities, less sugary soda, and time to grow up and out of being a kid.

Personally, Lance thought that Oliver's slightly hyperactive abilities to alternate between jobs had come from having parents who just didn't have very much time for little moments and small things. Thea had begun to realize it just before Oliver had disappeared and been presumed dead on Lian Yu. Oliver had figured it out many years pre-Island. When your parents didn't have time to listen or see the little things you did then it became necessary to do them all at once in the milliseconds you had their attention for.

When Oliver had become a teenager Lane had noted a remarkable shift in that ability to multi-task from a boyish enthusiastic charm to darker, more scummy side. Playing soccer while you hummed was remarkably sweeter than possessing the mental capacity it took to date two girls at once without telling one about the other and still maintain a third to bring home for family dines and hang on your arm for public functions. Not that Oliver had seemed to care much if each of the girls he dated knew about each other.

Lance had on several occasions contemplated using his pull with the law to make Queens life a little more difficult. Given that at least one out of the general three in the rotation tended to be one of his daughter's he was pretty sure he would have been justified. Not that either one of those daughters would be willing to speak to him for at least a week had he ever acted on those impulses.

When Oliver had returned from the island Lance had noticed that the once hectic energy Queen had possessed had stilled and quieted. In a way it seemed to have settled in to something equally as changeable and infinitely more dangerous than it ever had been before. Instead of a scattered kid, Oliver now seemed to be able to focus in on things like a laser.

That didn't mean he couldn't shift his focus though.

If finding out that Oliver was in fact the vigilante the Arrow had proved anything, it was that his ability to do about eight things at once was still alive and flourishing. For a while, Lance was fairly sure Oliver had actually had about three different jobs. Two night jobs and a day job. All of which could be seen as full time and slightly shady to a normal person.

Lance's own daughters had been rather their own little masters of multi-tasking from a young age. Laurel had been the kind of little girl who could prep for a math test and learn the words for her spelling quiz while jump roping. In high school, college, and law school Laurel had proved that she could work and study simultaneously. She had been head of the honors society and student body president as well as part of the swim team.

Sara's propensity to do many things at once had often resulted in huge half finished art projects. She had liked to perform in the school musicals. Singing, dancing, and acting all at once. Three jobs in one shot.

Ray Palmer had earned three PhDs simultaneously. Enough freaking said.

Thea was almost as hyperactive as her older brother. Earning a degree in business and running a successful nightclub weren't easy things to double up on. Throw in a scheming father and some superhero time punch duties and you suddenly had an extremely full life.

Captain Lance had no way of knowing what John Diggle had been like in his early ears but from what he's seen recently the man is a hell of a task master. He had had a marriage in the middle of a warzone. Anyone who could pull that off (however briefly) got serious props from Lance. He hadn't been able to maintain a marriage in the relative safety of Starling City. These days the man was juggling being a father, a husband, fighting crime, and a full time job.

When any of those people ever had time to sleep was completely and utterly beyond Quentin Lance. Of course, lately Lance hadn't exactly had time to sleep either.

Now everyone was busier than ever. Using what Lance considered to be slightly sketchy assets from the League of Assassins Oliver had bought back a sizeable share of Queen Consolidated. Palmer had happily agreed to a business partnership. From what Lance had heard, both men had agreed on one thing off the bat; Felicity Smoak maintained the ownership that Palmer had set up (without telling her).

Diggle had been hired immediately as the head of security and all military projects. His contacts with old military friends and A.R.G.U.S made him perfect for the job. His wife Lyla served as an independent consultant.

The business partnership between Oliver, Felicity and Ray seemed to work on an exceptionally high level. Felicity held control over everything even vaguely relating to the applied sciences division and half of the tech work while Ray took the other half. Palmer also dealt with the investors. Oliver handled foreign policy and brought all of the contacts his family name brought with it.

Between Palmer's open smarts and honest disposition, Oliver's new found seriousness and charm, and Felicity's babbling light the three of them managed to find investors. Not only find, but hold and keep. Combining all of those abilities with rather expansive skill sets meant that even someone like Lance could tell that they were kicking the collective asses of the corporate world. Billionaire status was almost definitely in the works for all of them, even with the sizeable charitable donations they made both privately and publicly.

Besides, with three of them sharing control someone was generally available to get the high points from board meetings while the other two kept the city safe from criminals in the less legal way. The less legal way that Lance would swear up and down he knew nothing about in front of any form of legal or official questioning. Of course he would be lying through his teeth, but he figured that was where being friends with two hacking geniuses and having a daughter who was in line to be the next D.A came in handy.

Lance had come by for a lunch meeting. At least, that was what the appointment Lance had made with the company secretary said in the official system. He was actually there to drop off a file with Team Arrow on the latest money laundering scheme through another major corporation opening up in Starling. It was some up and coming Russian with some mob connections. There wasn't a good way to put that on the appointment book.

He was directed to the top floor and after a quick glance around managed to locate a flash of blonde hair and bright pink fabric that he followed to Felicity. She was swirling around in her computer chair talking in to a Bluetooth. That would have been all completely normal had she not been switching between three different extra large high tech computer monitors and her customized tablet.

Her fingers flew across every key in a flurry of brightly painted nails swiping and tapping at the various screens and keyboards. She spotted Lance and greeted him with a bright smile and a small wave. "Hey Laurel," she said. "I just sent you the details on that diplomat. He's definitely in the drug dealing business. Also has a very nice off shore illegal nest egg. Feel free to flip and fry."

She tipped her head sideways and let her fingers pause on the keys. "Your Dad just walked in. I'll call you later with the rest of the details."

Laurel said something and Felicity nodded. "Definitely. I will _so _need stress relief after this week of board meetings is over. You, me, and Thea should definitely do a movie night. You bring the ice cream. See you in a bit." She hung up and turned to Lance, "Laurel says hi and to call her for lunch sometime this week."

Lance nodded, "thanks for the message. I really just came to drop this off." He extracted the file from his jacket pocket and dropped it on her desk. "Petkya Volkov. Trying to set up a money laundering dummy corporation."

The elevator let out a _ding _and Oliver stepped out. He was speaking in a long, complicated string of rapid fire Arabic. Apparently a month of near total immersion was really all the time Oliver needed to learn one of the most complicated languages in the world.

"I have another call coming," he said, switching abruptly back to English. "Keep me posted." Then he tapped the side of the Bluetooth to change calls and began speaking again in what Lance recognized from a brief family vacation to Berlin as German. ""Danke, dass Sie mich so schnell zurück gerufen haben. Ich weiß dass es bei Ihnen später ist durch die Zeitverschiebung. Tut mir leid dass Sie dadurch die Nacht aufbleiben müssen. Aber ich brauche Sie für die Überprüfung der letzten Buchhaltungszahlen."

He paused for a moment, listening to the person on the other end of the call before smiling. His shoulders relaxed as he sighed. "Danke und entschuldigen Sie noch einmal die Störung. Ich hoffe in Zukunft enger mit Ihnen zusammenarbeiten zu können. Auf Wiederhören."  
He sighed and rolled his shoulders before groaning as his earpiece beeped again. "Hello Mr. Coldo. The Berlin quarterlies are on their way to you as we speak. Excellent."

Oliver had just hung up again and looked like he was about to speak when the phone rang again. He allowed the call and his face cleared slightly. "Shì de zhè shì Mr. Queen de jiǎng. Yīgè bā diǎn zhōng yùyuē jiāng gōngzuò wánměi. Shì de, tā shì liǎng gè dǎng. Xièxiè nǐ, zàijiàn." This time when he hung up he paused for a moment as though waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then he let out a deep breath. "Okay we're good."

He leaned down and gave Felicity a quick kiss. "Our reservations at that new Chinese place you wanted to try are good for eight o'clock tonight," he informed her.

Felicity beamed up at him. "That was what that last call was about?"

Oliver smiled and twisted his fingers through hers. "Knowing Chinese has to be good for something besides dealing with the Triad. It turns out it gets you in good with the owner of Chinese restaurants."

Lance had to pause and shake his head. Queen and Smoak had gone from discussing dinner reservations to discussing dealings with the most dangerous section of the Chinese mob. Zero to sixty got nowhere close to describing those two. Zero to sixty thousand was closer.

"I could have hacked their computer and gotten us in too you know," Felicity commented.

Oliver smiled. "I know. I just thought I'd try doing something the legal way, just to shake things up." He looked up at the detective as he leaned back against Felicity's desk. "Detective Lance. What can we do for you?"

"More like what you can do for everyone kid," Lance corrected. He gestured to the file on Felicity's desk. "Petkya Volkov. Some Russian low life with mob connections. He's trying to set up a dummy company to launder money. I assume you have someone you can call about that?"

Oliver nodded. "I might know someone." He looked down at Felicity. "Can you dig up everything you can find on Volkov? If I can't get the Bratva to go after him then Lance could use something to bring to Laurel over at the District Attorney's office."

"You talk like I'm someone who didn't start up a program to search every known database for this guy the second the file landed on my desk," Felicity said with a serene smile.

Queen leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Sorry. Next time we need personal information on a member of the Russian Mafia remind me of this moment and I won't say a word."

"Uh huh," Felicity said in a manner that clearly said she was basically calling him out on shameless flattery she held up Oliver's phone. "Now go over in the corner and call your sketchy friends in the Russian mob."

Lance watched with quirked eyebrows as Oliver Queen, one of the most dangerous men in the world moved over to the corner wit his phone like a chastised child, leaving his Bluetooth on Felicity's desk top. "_Privet Anatoly_," he said, transferring over to Russian without even blinking. He put the phone on speaker and a heavily accented Russian voice came over the wiring.

"Oliver my favorite American," Anatoly said. "It has been a long while since last we talked. It was when you were in Moscow yes?"

"I know it's been a while," Oliver replied. "Given what happened with Alexi I wasn't entirely sure calling you was wise."

A rush of static came over the phone as the man on the other end side. "Yes that was unfortunate. Alexi may have been rather... over enthusiastic but we believed him to be a good Bratva brother. Perhaps you and me should have a glass of vodka and discuss your position?"

"_Da muy brat_," Oliver said, transferring easily back in to Russian. "We should arrange a time the next time you're in Starling."

Anatoly made a grunting noise in the affirmative. "But I think you did not call me for old pleasantries. What can I do for you_ kapitan_?"

"There seems to be a new corporate player in town." Lance noted the changes in mannerism Queen now. He had transferred over to a colder sense of business mixed with the humbleness of a man asking for a favor from friend. It was artfully done really. "Petkya Volkov. He's trying to establish a money laundering front and I can't afford to have him anywhere near my family business. I need to know he won't make a mess I have to clean up myself."

"Volkov," Anatoly mused. "He is a brash young man. We will have him immediately recalled to Moscow. I believe he may be attempting to prove his worth by cleaning money for the Bratva. It will be impressed upon him that interfering with the business of a _Kapitan _is not the way to do this. I would tell you to just kill him but his mother is a friend of my cousins."

Lance flinched. It was a cold shock to listen to a man so calmly discuss the death of another person. He noticed Oliver's Jaw clench but when he spoke his voice was even. "_YA tsenyu pol'zu_ Anatoly," Oliver said. "Is there anything you require of me?" Quentin stiffened. He knew about this part of the Bratva enough to know that a favor for a favor could often be dark but was generally typical.

Anatoly however appeared to be waving it this time. "Net pol'zu. Just make sure you keep time for that drink the next time I am in town. You and your associate my second favorite American. He may bring his wife if she is not too busy looking after the scores of children I hope they may have at home. That pretty little blonde one you kept mostly out of the way in Moscow could come to._ YA khotel by, chtoby udovletvorit' lyubyye zhenshchiny v Bratva kapitan_."

Oliver's eyes flicked to Felicity briefly. "I look forward to our reunion Anatoly. _Proshtnost_." With that he hung up. and looked at Felicity. "Anatoly says he'll take care of it. He wants to have dinner with all of us."

"I heard," Felicity said. "I'm still going to do some digging though. If this guy comes back it'll be good to have something on him."

Lance saw Queen nod and roll his neck to try to ease tension. "Well," he said. "I don't want to take up more time. Anyone who changed languages that many time in one conversation and is on four computers at once seems pretty busy. I just wanted to drop that off."

"It was nice talking to you Captain," Oliver said. "I know you're not comfortable with all of... this. But It's a relief to be on good terms.

Goosebumps ran up and down Lance's spine hearing Oliver utter the title. He could stomach a lot, but he wasn't sure the Russian mob was on that list. Never the less he nodded an acknowledgement and made his way out.

He paused in the doorway as he heard Felicity ask in a low voice, "You okay?"

"Yeah," Oliver responded. "Just changing languages all the time gives me a major headache. I keep thinking I'll start talking to the German investors in Arabic and have a million things to try to explain. As far as the world knows Oliver Queen was an idiot who couldn't even pass high school Spanish."

"The third person thing is still creepy," Lance heard Felicity inform him. "And you'll be fine. You are doing so well with all of this business stuff." Her voice was soft and Lance caught the image in the reflection in the window. She was standing now so that she was at an equal height with Oliver sitting and had her hands resting on his shoulders. "I'm proud of you."

Oliver leaned forward and kissed her for a long moment. "Thank you," he said in a voice so quiet Lance almost didn't catch it. "That means a lot." He pulled her in for a hug and the two just stood for a moment.

Lance decided that he had seen enough and made his way promptly towards the elevator.

The Russian Mob, a Chinese restaurant owner, a German business front, and a League of Arabic killers all mixing together. That was one hell of a multi-lingual conference call.

**A/N: So how did I do. I know my last chapter had Felicity a little ooc so I wanted her to be a bit more of a hacking badass in this chapter. I started working on this before the season finale so it's not exactly in cannon. But OMG! Olicity happiness! I wanted a way for them to keep being happy in a sort of possible future fic. More to come. I'm almost at summer vacation so more writing time! Review for me! I'm thinking of taking prompts if you want to give them. :). Review! Review! Review! xoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxxoxooxoxox**


	10. Chapter 10

**IMPORTANT: So about the German thing. I have been alerted to the fact that the German I used in my last chapter was not good to put it lightly. I would just like to make it clear that that was very much NOT ON ME. Blame the Google Translate gremlins. That said, if you feel like correcting the German because you genuinely speak it go right ahead and send me the right translation.**

**Message to Xaka (also kind of German thing part 2): I am TOTALLY ON BOARD with you translating this story in to German. Go! Run! Translate away! Just please do post a link to the original and mention that I am the author. Send along a little message when you've read this. If I don't hear from you by tomorrow I'll put a note like this in chapter 1. The email you gave me didn't work.**

**Now on we go! Oh, and there's that little thing where I don't own any of this. Please don't sue me oh almighty gods of the CW and DC comics.**

Captain Lance had always known that no one in the Queen family was particularly inclined to make wishes on birthday candles or falling stars. At first, that was simply because they were so freaking rich they didn't really need to wish for things. They just needed to mention that they wanted something to one of their parents, a check would be cut or a credit card scanned, and it would be theirs.

By the time Lance met Oliver Queen he had already basically figure that out. He was a little boy who had quickly learned that wishing for material things was much less effective than asking, and that hoping for the kind of thing you couldn't buy was mostly an exercise in disappointment. The closest Lance had ever seen him to entertaining those kind of ideas had been for Thea.

Oliver had been close to seventeen and Thea was nearly seven. Lance had been stopping by for coffee at a local shop near the precinct when he had seen the two siblings standing by the fountain next to the building. Thea was crying.

"Thea," Oliver said, sounding calm but a little frustrated. "I know you're disappointed that Mom and Dad aren't going to be able to go to your recital, but they have some big charity thing they have to be at so that other little kids can have things. Things like ballet classes."

"It's not fair," Thea sniffed. Then she launched up and tried to wrap small arms around her brother who had crouched down to be on her level. Lance noted with amusement that she wasn't even close to being able to reach. "You're going to be there right Ollie."

Oliver hugged her back and set his chin on top of her head. "I wouldn't miss it for the world Speedy. If you want I'll even ask Tommy to come to. You'll have the loudest cheering in the theater."

"Can Laurel and Sara come to?" Thea asked in a small voice. Oliver winced slightly in a way that Lance both knew about and approved of. The empty carton of ice cream in the garbage can was all he needed to know that Oliver and his daughter were in one of the rough patches Lance personally wished would simply permanently subside in to no patches.

Oliver quickly smoothed over his expression with a bright smile and reached in to his pocket. He handed Thea a quarter and gestured over to the fountain. "Tell you what Speedy, how about you go and make a wish on it in the fountain over there?" He straightened up as Thea tore off towards the pool of trickling water. "Watch out for the edge Speedy!" Oliver had called, beginning to jog after her.

Lance had just huffed and gone back to work.

He had realized later that Oliver might have grown up and gained a sense of vigilante castaway maturity, but he was still a kid that had decided that wishing just wasn't worth it. The rest of Team Arrow didn't seem big on the idea either. All the same, Lance thought he might now what they would wish for if they had been guaranteed it would come true.

Laurel had been the kind of little girl who would cross her fingers and wish for him to come home after night shifts in the glades. She had also been the little girl who had blown out her birthday candles and absolutely refused to tell anyone what she had wished for because then it wouldn't come true. She had said with a vey serious expression that it was too important to too many people to not come true. Now Quentin thought that if Laurel could wish for something she would preface the wish with about a million stipulations about having no negative repercussions from the wish, and then wish for her sister back.

Quentin didn't quite know what Roy would wish for, but he had a feeling it would probably have something to do with the parents he never talked about, or maybe the family of that one cop who had died that he was always watching over. Of course, it was equally possible that the kid just wished he hadn't had to leave and pretend to be dead. He got the feeling that Thea Queen would probably wish for something along the same lines as well. She would also probably wish that the people in her life hadn't felt quite such a need to lie to her. Hell only knew how much Lance himself wished he had been given that courtesy.

He didn't have a clue what Nyssa would wish for. From his few brief experiences with the women, he had gotten the distinct impression that he wasn't the wish making type. Wishing she could annul a Nanda Parbat marriage might make the list. According to Oliver it was a little difficult to annul a marriage in an undisclosable location, witnessed by people that according to the government didn't exist, between two people who hadn't consented, made without legal papers, and only binding in a religion/culture that was more dead than Latin.

Lance didn't know John Diggle very well. But he did know that the man was a father with a young daughter. Because of that, Lance was convinced that the man would wish for his daughter to be safe and happy no matter what might happen to him in the line of his "night job." If he had two wishes then the second one on the list would be for Floyd Lawton to never have been hired to kill his brother. If the sniper that had been hired to kill Andy Diggle had been a hair worse of a shot then his brother never would have died.

Felicity would wish for the same thing every night, a thousand times a night. For everyone on the team and in the field to come home safe, and relatively undamaged. Lance had once noticed her sitting quietly on the floor with a fluffy dandelion seed head, blowing off each seed one at a time. The team was working a particularly dangerous case, and the IT genius was simply waiting. Waiting and wishing.

Lance still didn't learn what Oliver Queen wished for until he had gone to drop off his latest tip for the team. He walked in to find Oliver and Felicity curled up on the couch as the final scene of the Disney movie Aladdin transferred over to final credits. Apparently once weekly movie night was something that Felicity had instituted while she and Queen had been on their vacation. Lance was willing to bet it had begun as a way to catch Queen up on pop culture and then become a way to simply guarantee a break from life.

Felicity turned off the movie and sat up on her knees facing Oliver. "So?" she asked. "Find a bottle with a genii in it and you get one wish because, let's face it three is excessive. What would you wish for?"

Queen looked up at her his expression was one that had Lance practically picturing the little cartoon hearts popping out of his eyes and circling his head. "Most of what I would have wished for is you," he said. "Just you."

She smiled back at him. "You have me."

"I know," he said. He reached out and twined his fingers with hers before pulling her in to the couch next to him, with her head over his heart. "That's why I don't have anything I really want to wish for. My life as had enough wishes and half granted miracles. And enough of them have gone wrong that I don't want to make any more."

"Makes sense," Felicity said, her voice was sleepy. Quentin couldn't see the two of them anymore, but he could hear just fine.

After a long moment later Oliver spoke. "I guess I would wish that Rebecca Merlyn had never gone to work at her clinic in the glades that night." Lance heard a rustle of fabric as felicity moved and her question was clear in the silence.

"If she hadn't gone that night, then Malcolm Merlyn would have never gone to the League of assassins or planed the Undertaking," he explained. His voice was thoughtful but not necessarily closed down the way Lance normally associated Queen's answers to personal questions. "My parents and maybe the Merlyns would have cleaned up the city legitimately. I wouldn't have gotten on the Queen's Gambit, Sara wouldn't have gone with me. No League, No Island, No Slade, and no Mirakuru. So many people that are dead now would be alive."

"You wouldn't have met me though," Felicity pointed out. "Or John. Thea might not even have met Roy."

Oliver let out a quiet huff of laughter. "No. It would have gotten worked out. Thea still might have crashed a car on her birthday and ended up working at CNRI because that's the kind of people we were. Roy would have still stolen her purse and that might have been good enough. John went in to private security and nothing really would have changed that. My family would have still hired him."

"And what about me?" Felicity asked.

There was a brief pause and then. "I would have spilled a latte on my laptop." Felicity laughed quietly and buried her face in his shoulder. "For real this time," Oliver clarified. "And I would have kept coming back because you would have been real, and that would have been different in my life. I'd have faked computer problem after computer problem until I finally got you to let me buy coffee for you. And I would have fallen in love with you either way."

"That's nice," Felicity said quietly. There was a long moment of silence before she said quickly. "You know I love you to right. I was thinking through what you said and it was such an interesting concept what with the whole alternate future thing that I sort of didn't think about it. By the time it all worked out in m head I realized that that would have been the right moment to say it back. And I do really seriously love you so-"

"I know," Oliver said reassuringly. "One of the few things I always know. Now go to sleep, I'll drive us home in a while."

Felicity murmured an assent. After a moment of peaceful silence Lance heard Oliver say. "You. I am always going to wish for you."

Lance knew why. It was one thing to wish for something you didn't have. It was a completely different thing to have what you wanted, and be constantly terrified that you wouldn't be able to keep it.

Wishing for things could be easy. Wishing to keep them was very, very, nearly impossible.

* * *

Hoping for things wasn't something Team Arrow did easily. Lance had noticed that most of them generally treated the least pleasant scenario as the most likely one. Optimism was not a dominant feature.

Laurel had always hoped for the ideal situation, but only because she relate to law and perfect justice. As a lawyer and an assistant DA she chased the best situation the law could provide. But she rarely hoped for it. Of course she hadn't always been that way. When she had been little Quentin had loved that both of his daughters had the kind of girls who hoped for little things like rain in summer, and snow days.

Over five years in the military had long ago made John Diggle the kind of person who Lance thought never hoped for little things. If he hoped for anything at all, Lance was willing to bet it was for the big things. Hope that no ghosts from the past would show up to haunt him, and hope that life wouldn't get more difficult or harder to live probably took up most of his time.

Felicity was really the only true optimist of the entire group. Lance could liken it to a single ray of sunshine in an incredibly large, dark storm cloud. She hoped that no one would get shot or hurt. Lance had even heard her say once that she had worn her lucky panda flats simply because she hoped it would give the team an edge when they shut down one of the off shoots of the Triad in Starling.

Hope was fleeting and elusive in the lives of people who probably needed it the most. Lance counted himself as an involuntary member of that particular group. But Felicity was surrounded by those people, and she still managed to hope for everything. Big and small because as she had explained on one particular ramble, hoping couldn't hurt anything.

* * *

Praying wasn't something Lance had ever set much store by. He wasn't religious and neither was his wife when he was still married. After everything that had happened with his life, he thought that if there was a God then he must be a special kind of cold and uncaring bastard. Praying to someone like that had exactly zilch in the appeal column.

The Queen's hadn't been a religious family either. Originally Lance hadn't really cared. Weather or not you thought an invisible, omnipresent, omniscient, being was watching out for you and deciding your life was entirely your own personal business.

After the Undertaking had happened, Lance began to think that maybe it was just the fact that the idea of heaven didn't sit well with people who had committed enough sins to be fairly certain they were headed towards the other option. Lance was a big believer in their being a special space in hell for people who a. plotted genocide, and b. ran multi-billion dollar corporations.

It was possible the Queen family wasn't as non-religious as he had thought though. As far as he understood it, Oliver's entire hooded and leather bound quest had begun as a mission to remedy the sins of his family. The sins of the father etc, etc. Of course, Oliver Queen post-island had proven to Lance (and everyone else) time and time again that he was in large part a creature of guilt. Not religious inclination.

"I've met the devil already Diggle," Oliver had once said after nearly a week spent fighting a new villain who called himself Lucifer. Oliver had been grazed with a bullet and it had been close but he had come through. "I've met him, and I've shaken his hand in a deal to take his place. This guy was bad but it could have been a whole lot worse."

Diggle clapped him on the shoulder and moved away towards the door. "I guess you'll just have to pray it doesn't ever get back to that point. And tell Felicity your bandages need to be changed every four hours." He had called the last part over his shoulder and the door had slammed shut.

Team Arrow's version of praying more closely resembled knocking on wood and small ticks and habits. Laure twirled her hair around her index finer in times of heavy stress. Ray flipped to computer programming and Felicity babbled about things that didn't really matter very much as a distraction. Diggle cleaned his hand guns in a slow rhythm and Nyssa sharpened hand knives using a traditional wet stone.

Lance could understand the last two ticks even as violent as they were. Knowing your weapons were close and functional was reassuring for any trained soldier. But it wasn't really praying. They were just habits for luck. More like pre-game rituals for athletes than anything else.

Quentin Lance didn't think Oliver really even prayed when his life was in danger. If he did, Lance was fairly willing to bet the thoughts represented something more like _please don't let me get fatally injured again. I haven't re-stocked the fridge with ready blood transfusions since this happened last time two weeks ago. _

Oliver's preference to not pray was something Lance identified with. Being out and fighting every night meant in large part relying on yourself and your team only. Widening the circle from there only made things dangerous for everyone.

Working with Oliver ha illustrated to Lance just how unwilling he was to rely on people who had proved time and tie again to be loyal friends and allies. Praying for divine intervention from an invisible and very possibly unreal being was an idea Lance would bet Olive regarded with an attitude that generally consisted of pointing and laughing. Of course, the Queen kid didn't laugh much these days. Or smile. Or generally show large quantities of any emotion.

There were only a few times that Lance had ever seen Oliver Queen have any kind of conversation with a deity.

The first had been when Felicity Smoak caught a stray bullet from a nutcase taking pot shots at everyone related to the Arrow. Lance had posted a police guard on her hospital room and had stopped by himself to check in on her. Somewhere along the way, Quentin Lance had ended up adopting another daughter. Maybe not legally, but he worried over the IT genius as much as he worried about Laurel these days.

He entered the room to find Oliver sitting on his knees with his fists clenched together on the bed by Felicity's side, careful not to press or tug on any of the wires. "You owe me," Oliver said in a dark voice. For a minute Lance was confused about who he might be talking to. "I don't know if I'm supposed to be talking to a god or to destiny, or the universe. But it doesn't matter."

Oliver forced his hands to unclench but they quickly reformed their fists. "Or maybe you don't owe me," he muttered. "I'm selfish, and a murderer. I lie. I cheat. I steal. And their I almost nothing I can do to ever make up for everything I've done." Lance was inclined to disagree there. Stabs, bullets, falling off of cliffs, preventing three sieges, and a relentless war against criminal activity probably made things a wash.

"You don't owe me," Oliver repeated. "But you owe her." Lance watched his eyes flick to Felicity. "She's good. And I don't deserve her. But..." He trailed off. "She's just good," he finished. "If your real, just please don't take her from me."

A very long moment later, Felicity's eyes cracked open. "Didn't know you ever prayed," she said in a croaky voice. "Didn't think you were really the type."

Oliver let out a huge sigh of relief and pressed kisses over the pulse in her wrist around the wires connecting her to the monitors. "This seemed like a special case."

The second time was when Malcolm Merlyn died. He and Oliver had made an uneasy alliance and fought back to back to protect the one thing besides Thea they both loved. Starling City. Damian Darhk killed Merlyn mere moments before Oliver's Arrows pierced his heart.

The battle ended then, and Oliver sank down beside Malcolm as Thea cradled his head in her lap. Malcolm looked up at Thea. "I loved you," he chocked out. "From the second I knew you were my daughter I loved you." Then his eyes locked on to Oliver with a dead stare. "You know the words," he ground out. "Say them. YOu have to."

Lance watched as Oliver seemed to consider before giving a curt nod. He spoke in a long, unbreaking stream of Arabic and then paused, repeating the words in English. "Lord have mercy on him," he said in a voice laced with steely determination. He continued the prayer as Thea began to cry. "Protect him from the torment of the fire, and the punishments of the grave."

Merlyn gave an almost thankful nod and pulled the ring off his finger and pressed it in to Oliver's hand. "It should have been yours," he chocked. Then Malcolm Merlyn breathed his last breath, and died.

Thea held her father and cried. Oliver placed a hand on her shoulder and turned to face the assassins Merlyn had brought with him. "Kneel," he said in a voice filled with a terrifying level of cold authority. "Kneel before Ra's Al Ghul."

He took a deep breath and moved forward continuing his speech. "From now on you obey me," he commanded. "If you wish to leave I will not hold you here, but those of you who choose to stay will follow my lead. No more killing if it is at all avoidable. Those such judgments will fall to me and Nyssa Al Ghul." He paused and stood tall in front of the world's most deadly army. Lance thought he looked completely and totally unafraid. "You are no longer a league of assassins, you are a league for justice."

Oliver later explained the logistics of the plan. A long running back up he and Nyssa had coordinated that should Malcolm die, Oliver who had been selected by Nyssa's father and fulfilled the prophecy would assume official mantle while Nysaa handled day to day operations.

The next time Lance saw the ring of Ra's Al Ghul it had been reformed in to two. One was a simple gold band, thick but light enough to not impeded the use of a bow and Arrow. Lance knew that Oliver originally kept the first ring on a chain around his neck. The other Oliver had shaped himself, adding in a handmade and etched arrow head to the gold, with a green emerald set in to the metal.

Lance watched when Oliver handed the second ring to Felicity Smoak. He had met her eyes. "It's the ring of Ra's Al Ghul combined with the metal of an Arrow head I made," he explained, his voice almost nervous. "The emerald was passed down through my family."

"Something from every part of your life," Felicity said, staring down at the ring.

"It's every bit of me," Oliver agreed. He reached up and closed her fingers around the ring. "Will you take it?"

Felicity smiled at him with the kind of smile she used that always put Lance in mind of the sun coming out. She wiggled her fingers around until the ring finger of her left hand had slipped through the band. "I thought I already had."

Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God," he breathed, straightening up and kissing her. Lance backed quickly away. If that moment hadn't involved some quality prayer jut for the hell of it on the part of Oliver Queen then Lance didn't know what was.

* * *

After a while working with the team and a few truck loads of full night hours, Lance had started noticing that Oliver Queen didn't sleep very often. In fact, the only times Lance had ever actually seen Oliver unconscious had been times when he had been- well... actually unconscious. The lazy kid who had habitually slept until noon now only seemed to sleep if had something to due with semi-lethal drugs, excessive blood loss, or massive amounts of blunt head trauma.

Lance had seen Oliver sleep exactly once, and as soon as he had gotten within ten feet of the cot Queen was lying on he had bolted upright fully aware. His breathing had been shallow and his hand had clenched around the handle of a knife that Lance guessed he must have hidden under the mattress.

That was when Quentin had figured out that Oliver didn't so much sleep as suffer through a few hours of nightmares when it was absolutely unavoidable. Dreams essentially stayed out of the picture. You didn't sleep armed unless you didn't trust your nightmares to not come to life.

Observation had proven that Oliver treated sleep and emotional responses the same way. Optional things like pieces of paper with suggestions on them. He collected them, folded them up tidily, tucked them in to his back pocket, and pulled them out for assessment of what was actually crucial later. Sleep seemed to fall in to the "Not-So-Necessary" category.

When Lance heard one of Oliver's dreams it was totally and completely by accident. But really, he couldn't help that Felicity hadn't shut the door behind her all the way when she went to talk to Queen as they attempted to stop Ra's in his attempt to annihilate the city. Nor could he help the fact that his position allowed a perfect view through the door.

"Every night since the mountain I've had the same dream," Oliver said quietly. He sat at the counter that held technology and supplies while Felicity stood above him. "You are _pleading _with me not to go, and I listen to you."

Lance couldn't help it, his ears perked up to listen. He new next to nothing about the circumstances surrounding how they had even gotten in to this mess. All he knew was that Sara was dead, Oliver was a vigilante, and the bad guy who had orchestrated the destruction of Starling City wanted to work with him. Any new information was welcome.

Oliver was still talking. "Sometimes it still ends badly," he said, fingers tapping over the sheathed sword that lay on the counter. "I end up with this sword in my chest. But most of the time... we escape."

Felicity's breath caught in her throat so audibly that it reached Lance across the room. "We're just driving," Oliver continued. His face had broken out in to a kind of desperately wistful smile. It was also almost disbelieving, like he couldn't quite comprehend even the _idea _that all of this could have worked out differently. "And all of this seems so far away, because it's just the two of us," Oliver finished.

Lance continued to listen as Felicity stepped up to him, placing a hand on his chest. He watched as Oliver's face broke in to a small smile as Felicity slowly took away the fear that the dream was impossible. She told Oliver that his dreams could change because _he _had changed.

After everything was over, Oliver announced that he was leaving if Felicity would go with him. Felicity's head dropped to his shoulder, burying a smile as she gripped one of his hands with both of hers.

Lance slowly slipped from the room and made a phone call. He gave a specific description of Queen's car and commanded all officers patrolling the city limits to let it pass under any circumstances. Speeding, deficient headlights, faulty turn signals whatever. He ordered his officers to let the car freaking _go. _

Captain Lance couldn't do much for Oliver Queen's hopes, or wishes, or prayers, but after eight years of complete and absolute crap, Lance figured the kid deserved for at least one dream to be easy.

**A/N: So what did you guys think? This chapter took a while so I hope you like it. It might be a little longer until my next one, I have finals coming up. Review for me!xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxxoxxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxxoxoxoxoxxooxoxoxoxoxxoxo**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is in any way shape or form owned by me. The idea is mine. Go my awesome brain! Go the brains at DC and the CW as well. Those brains actually belong to people who get paid to come up with this stuff. I don't. DON'T SUE ME!**

As it turned out, Team Arrow operated with a fairly decent set of ground rules. You wouldn't think so given the fact that by definition they defied the law (the more country wide rules), but they did use them. Lance appreciated that fact.

Quentin Lance tended to like laws. As a cop, you could probably say that love of rules was essentially his life. The law was steady, the law was definite, and the law was unchanging. Being in a position to uphold those laws was what Lance had completely dedicated himself to. Having a group outside the law who still operated with rules made their existence an easier pill to swallow.

Unfortunately, those rules weren't the kind that go written down and passed around upon initiation in to the team. There was no how-to manual for aiding vigilantism, and even if there was one Lance was pretty sure he wouldn't own one. At least, not until it was too late for it to be helpful. These rules were definitely more learn-as-you-go.

Some of the rules were a bit more basic. The first one Lance really learned was that as of Oliver's return, killing was a major no-go. As a policeman who preferred to keep homicide minimal, this rule was one he appreciated. Of course, this rule had a few notable exceptions. Imminent death of personal selves and innocent third parties at the hands of equally homicidal criminal maniacs being one of them. That had been evidenced with the dead body of the Count crumpled and reduced to pin cushion status after attempting to hold Felicity Smoak hostage.

* * *

The next rule he learned was on a stormy night in January. He had been in the area of Thea Queen's loft on a cursory police patrol when some great weather god had decided to unleash a mega-sized bucket loud of water on them. He had been doing that more often lately. His patrols when he did them brought him in to the neighborhood of Thea's Loft and Felicity Smoak's townhouse. Keeping his own extra watch.

Thea had let him in to her loft to dry off holding a finger over her lips. "You can come in and dry off," she said quietly. "Just be quiet okay? Ollie's actually asleep so this time has now been deemed sacred."

Lance nodded and walked in, pulling off his soaked jacket and hanging it on a coat rack near the door. A quick glance confirmed that Oliver was indeed sleeping on the couch. Lance frowned, even sleeping Oliver Queen had changed. Oliver had passed out on Lance's couch often enough that Quentin knew he was the kind of sleeper who spread out. At least, he used to be. Now Oliver slept flat on his back in a flat line with his arms crossed over his chest.

Felicity Smoak looked up from the laptop she was tapping at mutedly and gave him a smile and a small wave. She lifted up a mug of coffee and gestured towards the kitchen to indicate the source of the hot beverage. Lance nodded his thanks and made his way in that direction, pouring himself a mug of black coffee and taking a place leaning against the wall near the window.

Rain poured passed the window in torrents and Oliver twitched slightly before resettling. Felicity and Thea both paused and watched carefully as Oliver's hands clenched against his arms and then loosened. The rain increased, reaching the volume of a dull roar.

Oliver tensed and jerked with each new noise. A string of low muttering came from him before he flipped to his side, burying his head against the couch cushion. His hands seized around the edges of the couch and Lance moved forward to wake him up. No one should have to go through a prolonged nightmare when they didn't have to.

Felicity beat him to it though, stepping in front of him. "No don't," she said. "Don't wake him up." She sat on the edge of the couch near Oliver's head and reached out a tentative hand, running it lightly over his head.

Oliver jerked a bit at the contact but slowly relaxed as Felicity's hand continued tracing random patterns over his neck and shoulders. Eventually he relaxed, the lines of tension falling away as he eased against her. As the thunder ceased Oliver's head rolled gradually in to her lap. One of his arms lay over her legs while the other tucked a little way underneath her.

Lightning flashed and Oliver bolted upright, still half asleep. "Felicity?" he asked tiredly, acknowledging where he was with dull eyes.

"I'm right here," she said quietly. "Your safe and we're al fine." She tugged lightly on his shoulder and Oliver let himself be tugged down back in to her lap. "Go back to sleep," she soothed.

Oliver turned his head and pressed a small kiss against her knee. "Love you," he said. Then he drifted back to sleep, curling further in to felicity's side as the storm went on.

Felicity simply left one hand resting against his back as Oliver drifted back to sleep while her other hand typed away at her computer. "I know," she said quietly.

That was when Lance realized one major rule for Team Arrow. Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever wakeup Oliver when he is sleeping. It will only end one of two ways. Either Oliver could wake up and choke the person doing the waking, or he could just end up sleep deprived which could result in death. If at all possible, always get the kid back to freaking sleep.

* * *

The next rule was Felicity's and one that she was never shy about vocalizing. Do. Not. Touch. The. Computers. **EVER. **

If you do then somebody had better be dying and that person should probably be Felicity if someone else was close to one of her computers. And if that was the case then it would probably be good if everyone was very well clear of Oliver because he would be on a deathly warpath approaching near Mongol proportions against the person who had hurt her. Lance had only ever seen it happen once and the experience had been one that terrified him more than anything else he had ever witnessed.

If Felicity was in fact perfectly healthy, then the rule still stood that touching the tech was by Team Arrow standards completely illegal. They had to have their own standard of legality because the standard one was clearly one they were choosing to ignore.

Oliver and Diggle had both been sitting at the monitors clicking hopefully and occasionally prodding the keyboard as they tried to access a file while Felicity had arrived after sitting in rush hour traffic. "Back away from the technology," she commanded, jabbing a finger at both of them. She stepped forwards between them. Diggle move immediately while Felicity placed a hand against Oliver's chest to push him back. "I love you both. Clearly in different ways for different reasons but the two of you together form the literal _bane _of technology."

She had sat down at her computers and her fingers began flying over the keys with quick taps. "Oh my poor baby," Felicity said quietly. Lance caught the confused gazes Diggle and Oiver exchanged. "What did the scary big muscly guys do to you? I'll fix you, don't worry."

Lance saw Oliver shake his head slightly. He placed a hand on her shoulder and dropped his head to place a kiss on the crown of her head. "Call us back over when you have the location."

Felicity had nodded absently and shooed them away.

Diggle had certain rules to contribute as well. The main one was to never let any of the time go in to any situation without back up. This philosophy occasionally jived with Oliver's apparent policy of lying through his teeth if it would keep the other team members safe.

"Don't even try to tell me I can't come to back you up Oliver," Diggle had demanded. Damian Dahrk was closing in on all of them and Oliver had been getting ready to face him, trying to charge out like a gladiator walking in to a ring to do battle alone. Diggle had grabbed an extra gun and two spare clips of ammunition before moving after him. "Never let a brother go in to battle alone."

"Neither one of you is going anywhere without these," Felicity proclaimed, stepping towards both of them and holding out two sets of miniature electronic devices. "Tracking and ear pieces. I may not be able to go with you but I will be damned if I let either of you go against Dahrk without me for backup."

Lance could see Oliver's jaw whined tighter as he looked at Felicity. "I want you out of here," he said seriously. "Dahrk has resources and he definitely knows where this is. He'll come for you, and I can't let that happen."

"This is my choice Oliver," Felicity said in a manor that suggested they had already had this conversation some time Lance hadn't been around to hear it. "My life. I'm staying."

Oliver had sighed but nodded and looked over his shoulder to Thea and Laurel. "If Digg is with me then you two are sticking together. Watch each other's backs."

"Always," Thea agreed as Laurel nodded.

Those three were the major rules. Don't touch Felicity's computers, always accept the fact that you will have back up, never try to wake Oliver when he's sleeping, and if at all possible avoid homicide. Those rules were the enforced and unchanging ones.

* * *

The smaller rules were a bit more of a bitch to try to keep track off.

One day he heard Oliver shout across the top floor of Palmer Technologies saying, "I don't care if you think this place needs a name Felicity! We are _not _calling it the Arrow Cave 2.0 or the Lair. New rule." Frankly Lance didn't think that particular rule was ever actually enforced past a grumpy face and some griping from Oliver that Felicity always managed to quickly sooth away with a kiss or a babble.

Rules were generally made to be broken anyway.

* * *

"Can we make it a mutual rule between all of us that we never speak of this?" Caitlin Snow asked after the entire back up crew for the Flash came to Starling City. The trip had involved a very strange karaoke night and a whole lot of alcohol. Lance wasn't sure his ear drums would ever recover from some of the more horrible attempts at singing.

The most bizarre thing Lance had heard was a duet between Barry Allen and Malcolm Merlyn. What was worse was that as far as musical performance went, the two of them together hadn't sounded half bad. Of course, the amount of alcohol consumed by all parties (besides the Lances and Oliver weirdly enough) combined with several sets of super powers and some highly developed skill sets meant that some things could have ended up stranger.

"I could be okay with that," Oliver said. "Is that good with you?" he asked, looking own to Felicity who nodded. "Very okay with it," she answered.

Barry nodded as well, for once actually nursing a hangover thanks to an experimental alcoholic mix Caitlin and Cisco had developed. "All right," he said. "It is now an official rule. No mentioning this night ever."

That rule was brought in to action periodically. When a night had seriously sucked or gone totally absurd, the people involved were allowed to place a taboo on ever mentioning it again. As rules went, Lance thought that this was a pretty good one.

* * *

The next rule Lance learned was Thea's, and he learned it standing once again by the huge windows in Thea's loft. Felicity sat on a tell stool at the kitchen counter holding a mirror as Thea curled her hair. "You know you didn't have to do my hair and make up Thea," Felicity told her.

"Yeah I did," Thea said. "It's nice to have girl time. Besides, sister-ship rules state that I always get to do your hair and makeup."

"I'm not your sister yet Thea," Felicity reminded her with a little smile.

Thea shook her off. "Okay so I'm jumping the title gun by like, three hours. Big deal. Now, hold still so I don't burn you with this very hot and most probably lethal in some way hair curler."

Felicity shrugged a little bit. "Well, I'm sure you could probably make it lethal if you felt like it. That said I really hope you never do feel like it considering you are holding the iron you know, right next to my head. And I am going to be your sister in law so if you do feel the inclination it would have been great if you had told me like a year ago..."

"Breath Felicity," Thea reminded. "And I promise that I feel absolutely zero compulsion to kill you with or without a hair curler." She lowered the object just the same and then pulled Felicity to her feet. "Now go put on your pretty white dress with the dark green sash that made Ollie go weirdly mushy and possessive while I finish up my own hair."

A knock sounded on the door as Felicity moved to comply and Thea put on a new cote of lipstick. She spun immediately and gestured to Lance. "Get the door and shove my brother out of it and back to Diggle at the car. Groom is not allowed to see the bride before the wedding. Marriage rule."

Lance sighed. "Why exactly does it have to be my job to keep your brother away from his fiancé?" Lance wasn't necessarily a genius, but he definitely knew that getting between Oliver when he wanted to see Felicity was not a good idea.

Thea's eyes narrowed and Lance had to do a quick reevaluation of which Queen sibling he was actually more afraid of. He was actually coming down on the side of Thea when she began to speak. "Because you are acting as father of the bride. And I am pretty sure that wedding rules also say it is your job to divert the groom until you deliver said bride to his waiting arms."

"I don't remember that rule ever coming up at my wedding," Lance grumbled as he moved for the door to carry out Thea's wishes.

"I made it up," Thea called after him. "Now kick my brother's ass back down to the car and tell him to grow a little patience."

Well, what else could Lance do? He opened the door with the kind of sinister smile every father wears at least once when dealing with their future son in law.

Rules were rules. And Team Arrow had a set of them that definitely needed to be upheld.

**A/N: So how was it? I think it's a decent chapter. Sorry it took me so long to write it and get it out to you guys. I had finals I had to pass all this week at school. Trust me, it was an infinitely large corner of my own special hell. I hope you guys like it now that you have it though! If you have more ideas for these sorts of stories I am open for taking requests! Review for me! xoxoxooxoxoxxooxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxooxoxxooxoxoxoxoxo**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: No. I own absolutely nothing that is a recognizable property of DC or the CW. Suing me would not only be fruitless, it would also be nearly impossible to achieve (wait, actually I probably shouldn't even put that out there) my point is that I'm not trying to do anything that violates copyright laws.**

Quentin Lance had once heard that the technical definition of insanity was to do something over and over and over again and expect a different result each time. Originally Lance had just thought that there were different versions of insanity. As time had passed, Lance had come to the decision that there was probably just a difference between crazy and insane.

Either that or both terms were synonyms that adhered to a much more floating barometer than any other measuring instrument.

If insanity and craziness were different, then Lance was pretty damn well sure that Oliver Queen fit both profiles. Not that he didn't have a right to be. Five years fighting for survival on a deserted island (or other places) while having to be on constant red alert would entitle anyone to a little bit of crazy.

Then there was the entire separation of just mental issues that had nothing to do with craziness or insanity.

The weirdest thing had been that immediately upon his return to civilization Queen had seemed like the same entitled rich boy who had been shipwrecked. That was the major justification Lance had used to stretch the evidence he had had that worked as fuel for his hatred of the Queen kid. Nobody who had been through that kind of crap could possibly be that well adjusted.

Further conversation with John Diggle had proved that the bodyguard had come to a very similar conclusion. Lance had read the medical evaluation of Queen when he had gotten back to learn that the kid's body was twenty percent scar tissue. A person couldn't just go through the kind of crap that caused that and be fine!

That moved Lance to his first assessment of mental issues. PTSD. Yeah. Oliver Queen most definitely had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He _should _at any rate.

That assessment was confirmed when a women named Harley Quinn broke out of A.R.G.U.S custody and decided it would be fun to make their lives difficult. The women was, to quote Felicity, "cocoa for cocoa puffs" but she was still apparently a brilliant psychiatric mind.

Oliver had captured her and turned her back over to Lyla's contacts but not before she had said plenty of disturbing things. "Poor Arrow," she had trilled. "He wears a mask and some damage now but he's still just a tortured little rich boy. Poor traumatized Ollie Queen. Pretending to be healed but just barely hiding the cracks.

"You think I have PTSD?" Oliver had questioned.

"I don't think honey," Quinn had simpered. "I know."

Oliver knocked the women out with a swift punch to the neck. "Yeah?" his synthesized voice had asked over the mike. "I do to."

Later on when he had gotten back to base and everyone was regrouping Felicity had leaned over the back of Oliver's chair and lightly crossed her arms over his chest. "I know with all of this you can't exactly go to a therapist," she started slowly. "But you know you can talk to me right? To any of us."

Oliver tipped his head to the side and looked up at her with a tired smile. "I know." He reached up and covered her hands with his, moving his thumb along her palm as the others filed out one by one.

"The thing is," he finally said when it was just the two of them and Lance. "I know I could talk to any of you, it's just that thinking about everything... dragging it all to the surface it just-" he cut himself off and then restarted. "It's hard," he concluded. "I just think it would be better off buried."

"A psychologist would have a field day with all of us," Felicity said after a moment of silence. She pressed a kiss into his temple and rested her chin on his shoulder. "Springer to probably. The ratings for our episode would probably even be pretty high."

Lance saw Oliver manage a smile at that. He used one of her hands to guide her around the chair and in to his lap. "I know I'm damaged," he murmured. Lance's ears had to strain to hear the rest of his words as he had already begun to move through the door in to the hallway. "And I am terrified that I am going to end up hurting you. That something out of my past is going to crawl up and choke you. And it may not be officially confirmed but I probably have PTSD..."

Privately Lance sincerely doubted the necessity of the word "probably" there. It was more definite he would say. But at the same time, he wasn't sure it could be called Post Traumatic Stress when the traumatic stress hadn't actually been ended yet.

"Shh..." Felicity hushed gently as Oliver's voice got more strained with each syllable he uttered. "You don't _have _to tell me all of what happened to you. But if I can help you then you _need _to tell me."

"You do help me," Oliver promised quietly. "By trusting me, by staying, by loving me... Just you being here helps me."

* * *

Lance was sitting in the new Palmer Technologies version of the Arrow Cave to join in target practice when he got a whole host of other mental issues explained. Of course, target practice pretty much qualified as redundant when it came to Oliver. The kid could pin a bouncing tennis ball to the bull's-eye of a target in the space of a heartbeat.

Lance had already had his firearms target practice using a silencer. Now he was watching Diggle and Laurel circling around Oliver who was standing in the center of the room blindfolded while they engaged in a training exercise. The two of them alternated throwing tennis balls between Oliver and the target. It was incredible really. The tennis ball would release and the second it fell in to line between Oliver and the target the bow string would release with a soft _thwip _to find it's target.

"That's it," Diggle said as the last projectile was pierced. "No more tennis balls remain to meet a fiery end for tonight." Oliver pulled the blindfold off and fired a last arrow, splitting the shaft of one that had already reached it's target. "I don't know how you do it man," Diggle said.

Oliver shrugged. "Five years of isolation without a better way to catch food or keep other things from wanting to kill me," he provided, leaving his bow in it's new case and pulling off his quiver.

"You can use a gun though," Diggle said. "I saw you at Corto Maltese. You were a perfect shot." Lance's ears perked up at that information. If Queen could use a gun then why the hell would he want to use a weapon that had gone out of use at least half a millennium ago?

"Guns have no control," Oliver explained. "They're reckless and emotional. They require a moment of giving up complete control of the weapon."

Lance almost wanted to protest simply because he had spent the better part of the last two decades with a gun on his hip. On another level he had learned something different about this version of Oliver Queen. This new him was something of a control freak.

It wasn't just in his weapon preference. It was in the way the kid sharpened every arrow meticulously until it was sharp enough to pierce Kevlar like tissue paper. The exact level of control he used to make each one sharp without damaging the metal or creating the wrong sized arrow head to go through the air correctly. The control was also in how everything had it's own place in the lair, and everything was kept organized.

The old Oliver Queen hadn't even been able to organize a school binder for homework. The new version had managed to live at least two different lives at once with three jobs that most people would consider full time occupations. Plus, while he might not have been a good liar he could at least remember which lies he had told which person.

Lance also got an unfortunate itching feeling that said that the fact that Oliver was now simply catching people and turning them over to the police instead of killing them took an extraordinary level of self control. For the sake of Starling City homicide rates Lance sincerely hoped that it was a level of control Oliver could maintain.

That hope was put to the test when Amanda Waller made the extremely bad choice of kidnapping Felicity Smoak. Lance had been on the other end of the coms link when Oliver had gotten her back. The confrontation had been short and bloody but remarkably non-lethal given the circumstances.

"Give me one reason not to kill you right now," Oliver demanded of Amanda Waller.

"We're on the same side here Mr. Queen," Waller tried to negotiate. "Besides, if you kill me in front of her, all you'll be proving is that you are still the monster I made you in to. The one I taught you how to be."

The sound of an arrow being drawn and released echoed across the link. "You're right," Oliver's voice said. It was so cold. Deadly calm and controlled. It was so much worse than it would have been if it was nothing more than uncontrolled fury. "But you didn't just teach me how to kill. You taught me how to hurt. How to inflict pain. And I can promise you that if you ever come after someone I care about again I will dedicate my life to destroying you I every single painful way I know how. And then I will _end_ you.

He and Felicity had both gotten back safely, and Lance learned something important about control. Oliver had it in abundance, and somehow that was way more dangerous than no control at all.

* * *

The next set of issues was much more easily discoverable. In fact, it was really pretty damn obvious. The kid lived at least two lives at once. Identity problems were sure to pop up left right and center.

"So," Felicity said after one operation where Oliver had had to broker a meeting for the Russian mob. "So far your identities include Russian mobster, billionaire CEO, older brother, co-head of the league of assassins, and vigilante. We're up to five now."

"Nope," Oliver disagreed, turning her swivel chair around and kissing her. "We've also got Ollie who all of the press remembers and Ollie Queen who ran that fancy nightclub that's now run by his sister."

Felicity waved a hand casually that Lance saw from over the pile of paperwork he was going through for the precinct. That was the problem with getting promotions. Power in a bureaucracy seemed to increase proportionally to the level of paperwork you had to go through every single time you needed to get something done. Being a detective had been more of a happy medium.

Felicity was still talking. "So I guess that means we're technically at seven. You're beating out most people who have actual multiple personality disorder."

"Except for the fact that none of those are actual personalities," Oliver pointed out. "They're shells." He pulled off his hooded jacket and pulled a grey Henley on over his undershirt. "It's like," he mused. "It's like how it was when I watched Thea play dress up when she was little. I put on the business suite and it's like I'm pretending to be my dad. The arrow head goes around my neck and I take on the power of Ra's Al Ghul. I put on the hood and I'm the Arrow."

"The Green Arrow," Felicity corrected with a slightly jabbing finger. "We're being color specific now remember. Regular Arrow has been retired due to legality issues."

Oliver's eyes flicked from her face over to Lace who grimaced back in apology. If he had been able to do something to keep Roy Harper from having to fake his own death he would have done it. Unfortunately there hadn't been anything he could do when the Harper kid showed up with a mile long resume of petty theft and violence confessing to being the vigilante.

"Green Arrow then," Oliver conceded, pulling on a coat to protect from the rain outside. "Ready to go? It's probably not too late to do dinner."

Felicity stood and pulled on her own bright pink raincoat. "Technically I think we're closer to breakfast time at this point," she pointed out.

Oliver shrugged and suggested, "Breakfast for dinner?"

"Can you make breakfast?" she asked. "I mean, I know you can do fish and stuff but I always kind of assumed you were the kind of person who burned toast. Not that I can really judge given how once during college I actually managed to burn Easy Mac in the microwave."

Queen shrugged one shoulder and reached out to pull the jacket tighter around her shoulders. "I promise that I will not burn toast."

Lance huffed under his breath. He had personally been witness to Oliver Queen attempting to make breakfast once. Laurel had gotten the flew and Oliver had made an attempt to make her a breakfast she could actually consume. Dinah had tried to convince him to see it as Oliver finally trying to be a good boyfriend. Lance personally had seen a kid who nearly blew up his kitchen using a toaster.

"Excellent," Felicity said happily. She picked up the bag containing her laptop and then turned to Lance. "Goodnight Detec- I mean, Captain Lance."

Lance waved once and turned back to his paperwork. The top floor of Palmer-Queen-Smoak Technologies Consolidated was as good a place as any to do the work as any other desk anywhere else was. At least from the top of a skyscraper he had a good view.

"You're wrong" Oliver's voice drifted back from the door. "Before when you said there were seven versions of me. There are eight."

"Were you part of the CIA or something to?" Felicity asked resignedly. "Because there are still at least two years worth of bad things that could have happened o you while you were away and I have a seriously unfortunately large imagination so I could really come up with a whole lot of options and they're all seriously freaking me out."

The voices moved further down the hall and Lance could hear the ding of the elevator being called. "Nothing like that," Oliver said. "There's me."

"Of course there's you!" Felicity said. Lance could hear the exasperation in her tone. "I don't count that as a _version _of you. That's just **_you._ **To me you're all o those things and all of them are you, but you're still Oliver. Just Oliver Queen."

There was a brief moment where Lance couldn't hear anything and he chose not to think about why the conversation had stopped. He had a feeling that that imagination street would lead to a very bad barricade. Possibly it would necessitate the use of brain bleach.

"Thank you for seeing him," Oliver said finally, in a voice that was as soft and gentle as Lance had ever heard it.

Lance turned back to finish his paperwork, shaking his head.

Oliver Queen was a million and one kinds of emotionally screwed over. He had PTSD, probably multiple personality and or dissociative personality disorder, hyper vigilant, a control freak, habitually sleep deprived, and eight kinds of paranoid. In short, he was any trauma therapists wet dream.

But Felicity Smoak was willing to take on all of it. She encountered each bit of trauma one at a time and willingly accepted each one. She had done her own psyche evaluation more comprehensive than any professional and had decided it was worth it. Lance thought that maybe that was the most important thing someone could do for another person; decide they were worth it.

Shit load of psychological baggage, insanity, and craziness included. Because after everything Lance had seen, he had to conclude that they were definitely different things. Oliver Queen had each and everyone of them. He just also had a girl who loved him anyway to help him through it.

Really if there was one person who fit the technical definition of insanity among them, it was probably Quentin Lance himself. And wasn't that thought just crazy enough to work out?

**A/N: So how was it? I thought it would be interesting to look in to Oliver's mental state. God knows there has to be enough wrong with that to have some material to write about right? Someone fixed the German for me from a couple chapters ago and I give them credit there. If it bothered you before it is now corrected. Anyway, review for me! I'm still taking requests. I've had one or two but I'd like to have a nice big list to give me something to work through before I get started. Thanks to those of you who have sent me suggestions already :) Extra Olicity hugs for you! Review! Review! Review!xoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I own nothing! Nothing! Nada, zip, zilch, zero.**

**This is based off of a prompt I got. It's my first shot at writing based off of one of your suggestions so we'll see how it goes! On with the writing...**

Lance had learned lately that Oliver Queen had a way of working through every single possible angle of a situation. He had a very specific way of doing it. When situations were presented where it ended up necessary to coordinate and think through a strategy Oliver would suddenly go very still, and fix his eyes on a blank spot on the walls, floors, or ceiling.

His face took on the sort of contemplative expression Lance had used to see on his face on rainy days when Oliver and Laurel would stay inside and put together jigsaw puzzles on the Lances' dining room table. Sara would sit beneath the table catching jig saw pieces when they skidded off the edge, or hop over to the canary Quentin had bought her and watch it twitter. Frequently she would manage to pull Oliver away to look and comment on something or other. Neither of them had ever really had the patients to stand still and work the way Laurel had.

That said, whenever Oliver had actually decided that he really wanted to work out the puzzle he had done the same thing. Sat very still and silent. On the surface, it normally looked a little bit like he was spacing out. If you looked a little closer though, at the eyes, that was were you could see an uncompromising sort of focus.

When Queen had been a kid that level of focus had been almost funny. In the stretch between Oliver being a kid and the island that kind of concentration and focus just plain hadn't shown up. As far as Lance knew the only thing Oliver had planned during that time had been the kind of parties that Lance had frequently broken up with a badge and a squad car.

Since Oliver had come back from the island his expression when planning was about a million times more terrifying. These days when Oliver was focusing Lance could almost see his eyes turn in to ice chips. The people who had spent more time around Oliver like Felicity and Diggle could probably see wheels turning inside his head. Unfortunately, Lance doubted if they could ever actually tell what exactly was spinning.

Lance noticed that Oliver had developed in to the kind of person who would start a chess game with someone and plan through the next eight turns from both players with a contingency plan for every possible move that could be made. When it came to fighting off mass murdering super villains Lance was pretty sure this was helpful. However, that didn't mean it wasn't a little terrifying under different circumstances.

Felicity had organized a team Arrow normality fun night once that Lance had been invited to. It had involved movie watching at first, but watching action movies or dramas rapidly lost appeal when your life might as well have been on screen. Eventually, they had ended up playing the board game Risk.

Suffice it to say, Oliver had won. More accurately he had planned well enough and executed every move for board game style world domination in the shortest possible time span anybody ever had. It had been concise and impossible to challenge.

Risk had only been a board game, but Lance had still felt a chill run down his spine when Oliver had looked up at all of them with a blank expression after winning. The kid was essentially the uncontested commander/ruler of the single most powerful group of armed killers in the entire world plus a magical hot tub to bring him back to life. It was probably good that Oliver Queen could at least be counted as a relatively good guy.

As long as you didn't look at it as objectively. You know, like a normal person with an unscrewed sense of morality, legality, or personal involvement. If you were that person you arrested everybody and did some heavy duty criminal sentencing.

The point was that Lance had learned that Oliver had become the sort of person who planned. Not the broad spectrum, five-year, future, bucket list kind of plan. More the I-will-carry-out-the-last-wish-of-my-father, break in to the highly secured building for information/ whatever else we need this week, evade the evil psychopath who wants to kill us, kind of planner.

Lance had to admit that Oliver Queen's life was probably the best example possible of why five year plans were essentially crap. Bucket lists were probably no good for him either. Why plan a list of things to do before you die when the day you die will probably be tomorrow? That was just a recipe for depression.

So no, Oliver Queen was not a five year kind of planner. Lance had worked out that Oliver was more the kind of planner who saw where everyone was at a respective point A, noticed all of the crap at point B, and then planned and calculated the way to get all of them to the right point C. Whatever happened in the random middle was more a deal-as-you-go thing with team Arrow than it was the planned out part.

After watching the team, Lance had seen that if anyone worked out those smaller details it was Felicity. Not that Oliver, Diggle, and Thea didn't notice smaller details. They did. It was clear in the way their eyes flipped around every room and situation they walked in to the second they got there. They just noticed those little details one situation at a time without looking for details in the next one.

Oliver calculated, planned, strategized, and manipulated. Malcolm Merlyn still took the cake for maniacal planning, but Lance had been in the room when Oliver had planned to exchange Damian Darhk for the virus. He had heard Malcolm say "that is remarkably ruthless and cold. I approve." The older man had looked at Oliver with a chilling expression of smug, pride. To Lance it had looked like a twisted version of the look some parents get when their kids graduate from college.

So when things were unplanned, Lance could actually see the metaphorical carpet slip from under Oliver's feet. He knew the feeling that went with that expression all too well. It was the way it felt when your stomach jammed it's self in to your throat and then dropped down to the soles of your shoes.

Unfortunately, accidents were a part of life. Like when someone bumps in to you in the hallway and spills coffee all over you. Or when the breaks in a car give out when your crossing the street.

So of course it was an accident.

When the breaks in a car don't engage and the car hits you crossing the street it's always an accident. Especially when it's raining and there's no visibility. Especially, _especially _when the soccer mom with the little five year old in the back of the van with the one hundred and two degree fever in the back of the van is sobbing and having a break down and calling every emergency number there is.

That situation could only be an accident. That was why there were two categories when cars hit pedestrians. Accident, and hit and run.

Captain Lance was the first to admit that when he heard about Felicity Smoak being admitted to Starling General Hospital ICU after being hit by a minivan he had called in a deputy to run plates on the car and a background check on the owner as he moved out the door. What with everything that had happened he just didn't trust that it hadn't been on purpose without checking first.

But it had been. Melissa Conway had just been a single mom who hadn't been able to get her breaks replaced and hadn't been able to see in the driving rain. She had panicked and been trying to get her little boy to the emergency room. Just an accident.

Lance got to the hospital in record time, and he wasn't the least bit ashamed to say that he had used his siren and broken every single speed limit and traffic law between the precinct and the hospital. The only driving law he hadn't broken was calling while driving. He had left his phone in his pocket and itched to use it to call and check on Felicity's condition all the way to through drive.

He barged in to the emergency room flashed his badge and demanded to know everything about her that he possibly could. The nurse at the information desk had been unsure about weather or not telling a cop would be in violation of doctor-patient confidentiality until Laurel had stalked in to the room with an expression that said she was ready to rain down hell. If Lance hadn't been panicking he would have been damn proud of his daughter.

Quentin couldn't understand half of the legal mumbo-jumbo that Laurel had used, but what it had basically boiled down to was that he was listed as one of Felicity's emergency contacts and eventually she had forced the nurse to give him details.

Felicity was stable but she had had internal bleeding, suffered a concussion, and had two compound fractures in her left leg. None of her injuries had been deemed inoperable, or unfixable without recovery time. The internal bleeding was apparently supposed to be the kind that would heal up on it's own. Her leg would take time and a very uncomfortable cast, but the thing they were worrying about was the concussion. The doctors couldn't even test it until she woke up.

They didn't say it, and it was possible they weren't planning to, but the unspoken "if" was jangling in Lance's ears. He had lost too many innocent people he cared about- lost too many daughters for this to go bad to.

Laurel's hand had tightened on his forearm as the nurse spoke and as soon as she was done Laurel had led him to Felicity Smaok's recovery room where he stopped cold in the doorway. That was the moment Lance decided that he was willing to try whatever it took to have Felicity's eyes open again as soon as possible. Weird Palmer manufactured nano-tech or League of Assassins magical hot tub, whatever it took.

Not only because the sight of Felicity lying on a hospital bed attached to at least eight different sets of tubes and monitors made him feel like his blood had been replaced by ice. That was a major percentage of it. The rest was the fact that Oliver Queen was sitting right next to her bed, holing her hand and staring down at her face with an empty, ashen expression. He looked like his mind had been burned out from the inside.

Speaking as a member of the Starling City population who fought crime, on a very professional level Lance needed that look to leave and never come back. On another level all together Lance knew that that expression was the look of a man who was probably only inches away from having nothing to lose, and everyone knew that there was nothing more dangerous when the person was normal.

From Oliver that would end up meaning the absolute annihilation of nearly everyone Oliver Queen and the people he loved had ever suffered at the hands of. Now that would include a mini-driving mom. As a protector of the common good Lance couldn't exactly let that happen, but if the emptiness in Oliver's current expression ended up being backed with fire there wouldn't be a thing in hell Lance could do about it.

On a personal level, Lance couldn't stand seeing a kid he had known since childhood look like that. He had seen Laurel look empty when Tommy had died and it had taken everything Lance had to pull her back over the edge. In the last year Lance had seen Oliver survive the death of both of his parents, his best friend, Sara, and probably countless other people in the last eight years that Lance had never heard about. Each loss had piled up on top of Oliver, and Lance had now seen enough to know that the death of the girl he loved would be the straw that snapped the camel's back.

If that happened, there wouldn't be a medical innovation in hell that would pull Oliver back over that edge. Oliver Queen waked on a razor edge nearly every day. Lance got the impression he was seeing what it looked like the second before he went over. The moment he knew it was coming, and had accepted the approaching fall.

Oliver had hit the ground before and somehow managed to stick himself together again. Lance could see that that car accident was making Oliver reevaluate weather or not it was worth it to keep fighting gravity.

"She's going to be okay man," Diggle said lowly from the chair he sat in on the other side of the bed. Oliver nodded numbly and Diggle reached across, laying a hand on his shoulder and shaking it until Oliver's eyes snapped to his. "She's going to be okay," Diggle repeated. "Are you hearing me right now Oliver? Felicity is going to be okay." He drew out each word slowly. Lance recognized it as the same way of speech soldiers used on shell shocked comrades.

Oliver stayed silent for a long moment. He was in a position to be able to see Lance if he wanted but Quentin got the feeling his focus was really only big enough for one thing besides Felicity at the moment. "She might not wake up," Oliver said finally. His voice was horribly hollow.

"She will," Diggle enforced. "Come on Oliver, do you really think Felicity would ever bail on you if she had something to say about it?" The former bodyguard looked down at Felicity with all of he protectiveness of the position he officially held mixed with the caring of an older brother. Lance had noted that John Diggle was like a bear. Vicious in the face of threats but fiercely protective of the people he cared about. It was a quality that Lance guessed had been started by being a big brother, refined in the military, and emphasized by fatherhood.

Diggle lowered one hand to the one of Felicity's that Oliver wasn't holding. "Our girl is a fighter," he said. "She'll wake up."

Lance saw Oliver bight so hard in to the side of his cheek that he wouldn't have been surprised if Oliver had started spitting up blood. "This wasn't supposed to happen," Oliver ground out through his teeth. "I planned for almost everything," he continued. "I have a will written and a plan to keep all of you taken care of. But I didn't plan _this. Never this." _

Diggle's next words told Lance two things. "What's in the will?" he asked. The first thing this told Lance was that Oliver may operate on high survival mode, but he never actually planned to outlive any of them. The second thing was that John Diggle already knew that. It was a good distraction tactic to.

"It's not just a will," Oliver said quietly. "The will is involved, but their was more to the plan than that." He swallowed heavily and then kept going, his eyes back on Felicity's closed eyes. "The will handles the simpler things. The company, the money, health, life insurance, power of attorney, that kind of thing."

"And the rest of it?" Diggle said, pushing lightly when Oliver didn't seem inclined to continue.

It was another long moment before Oliver spoke again. "Safety," he said finally. "When I die I have arrangements to keep you all safe." Lance noted that he didn't say _if _I die. He had said _when_.

"The League?" Diggle guessed.

Lance saw Oliver nod. "Matseo once told me that one of the _benefits_ of being the new Ra's would be that Felicity would be safe." He shaped the word "benefits" with a disgust so thinly veiled that Lance could hear it plainly. "I lead the League now, and they do what I say. I've told them to protect all of you well past my death."

Quentin got the feeling that those orders had probably been given with some very strong emphasis and careful wording to avoid the exploiting of any loopholes. If he had to guess, Lance would probably say that Oliver had told them to protect all of his loved ones with their lives until the last breath had left each and every one of them due to nothing apart from natural causes. That would have been the smart thing anyway, and whatever the tabloids believed Oliver Queen was not stupid.

"There's also the Bratva," Oliver continued emptily. "It might not really work for all of you, but Anatoly liked you and Lyla when he met you and he leads the Brotherhood. He owes Sara from the Island so it's possible Laurel and her dad will be safe to." Lance wasn't particularly sure how he felt about the fact that the Russian Mob was supposed to be looing out for him and his family, but he decided to shelve the issue.

"And Felicity?" Diggle prompted.

Oliver sighed and dragged a hand over his face tiredly. "The Bratva is a very strict patriarchy," Oliver said slowly. "The rules don't exactly change with the times." He let the words trail off for a moment and then shrugged. "Anatoly saw her with me."

Diggle nodded and Lance understood the implication of the words. From what he knew Queen was a Bratva Captain, a high level member of the organization. That meant that if he showed up somewhere with Felicity and indicated that she was supposed to be protected then Felicity would be able to walk down a back alley in Moscow completely without fear. The members of the Bratva may be mostly sons of bitches they were damn protective of the women involved. Old Russian style patriarchy to the core.

"Damn it!" Oliver swore suddenly, pushing back from the bed and jumping to his feet.

He paced over to the window and Lance saw Diggle sit back in his chair regarding him. "This isn't your fault Oliver," Diggle said, slowly and calmly. Lance could hear a measured quality in his voice that suggested h had talked Oliver back from this sort of ledge before. "In fact," the bodyguard continued. "Based on everything you've told me it seems like you did everything you could have to prevent something like this."

"And it wasn't enough!" Oliver hissed. It was much worse than if he had shouted. Shouting would have been normal. Instead Lance thought that the strain in his voice held too much fury. The kind that bubbled over and boiled out your insides.

The worst bit was that Lance didn't think it was directed at the world in a way that might have made sense. Oliver Queen was furious with himself. Not so long ago Lance would have jumped for joy at the idea that the universe was finally hitting Queen back the way he deserved. Pain and anger would have been emotions he would value in him.

Now Lance found himself fighting the urge to walk the rest of the way in to the hospital room to try to comfort him.

"I plan _everything _I can to keep her safe," Oliver said, almost spitting the words out between his teeth. "To keep all of you safe. And it wasn't enough."

"You can't control the universe man," Diggle said, sounding tired. "You can't put bubble wrap on the world, and you know she," he gestured to Felicity. "Would pop all the bubbles even if you tried." The bodyguard leaned forward and rested his hands on the edge of the bed. "Accidents are a part of life, and you may be corporate master of the universe, a hero, and a leader in two powerful organizations but you can't actually plan against heavy rain and faulty breaks on a minivan."

Lance heard the sound of footsteps charging up the hall and turned towards them. Ray Palmer was walking quickly down the hallway carrying a padded medical case with Laurel right next to him.

Palmer spared Lance a quick nod and knocked lightly on one post of the doorframe. Oliver's eyes flicked towards him automatically and Lance fought down a feeling of relief. If Oliver was back to being able to track movement and focus it was a definite step forward from staring blankly at the wall.

Ray held up the case. "I come bearing nano-tech," he said. Oliver nodded and gestured for him to come in. Lance took that as his cue and slipped in to the room behind Palmer. The fact that Oliver didn't look at all surprised to see him made Lance think that he might not have been quite as out of it as he had seemed. Either that or Oliver's version of being out of it was more observational than anyone else's.

Inside the case was what looked like a typical syringe that Lance knew was full of the programmed technology. "We used this to fix me," Palmer said. "It didn't kill me, and I am the only one we've tried it on so technically that still is a one hundred percent success rate." Ray was babbling now and the hard glare Oliver managed to level him with was enough to end the word flow.

"Just do it," Oliver said.

"Okay," Palmer murmured. He injected the nano-technology in to Felicity's neck and there was a long moment where everyone in the room including Lance held their breath.

Felicity sat up suddenly, coughing ad gasping. She blinked dazedly and then focused on Oliver. "What happened? 'Cause if this is heaven then I am feeling sincerely let down."

"You were hit by a car," Thea said from the doorway. "You were... whatever, and Ray used his little mini nano-tech bots to make you better."

"Little mini nano-tech bots is redundant," Felicity pointed out tiredly.

Thea rolled her eyes and looked at Oliver. "She's better," she pointed out. "I'm going to go find everyone some coffee."

Laurel moved in to the room and gripped Palmer by the wrist. She began to pull him out the door and Lance knew from experience that there would be no point in the billionaire trying to resist. His daughter was like a bulldog. Impossible to shake off. "You and me are going to go and work on making that tech legal," she informed Palmer as they went. Ray didn't seem to be fighting it all that hard.

"I'm just going to leave so you two can have a minute," Diggle said, not bothering with an excuse before leaving.

Lance retreated to the door but stayed a moment. There was still a horribly blank fractured look in Oliver's eyes that he wanted to see fade a little before he left. The truth was that Quentin wasn't completely sure what a post-island Oliver was capable off when he was angry or scared, and he didn't particularly want to find out the hard way.

Felicity looked at Oliver and Lance could tell she was seeing the same thing and then some. "I'm okay Oliver," she said gently. "My head barely even hurts and I can practically feel the bone in my leg re-healing." She paused a moment, "the doctors did set it already right? Because if not this is really going to suck."

"You could have died today," Oliver said. He sounded almost numb again.

"I didn't though," Felicity pointed out. "Just like you almost die practically every week but you don't. Ray got here and now I'm fine."

Oliver's hand clenched and unclenched at his side. "I survive," he said stiffly. "But that situation is _never _supposed to happen to you. Diggle and I were talkig about it. I plan everything possible so that even if I die you'll be safe."

"Okay," Felicity interjected. "The fact that you have contingency plans with the express idea that you'll probably die does _not _in any way make me feel better. I told you with Ra's. You have to fight to live."

"I do," Oliver said, stepping towards the bed again. "But that doesn't mean I' always going to win which is why I make plans so this," he gestured around at the hospital equipment, "doesn't happen."

Felicity sighed and held out her hand expectantly. Oliver slid his fingers in to hers without question and Felicity pulled him down beside her. She curled in to his side and tucked her head against his chest. Oliver wrapped his arms around her and shut his eyes tightly.

"You can't plan everything," Felicity said in a small, tired voice. "This wasn't a plan. Just a perfectly normal car accident is all."

Oliver didn't say a word. He just wrapped his arms a little tighter and pressed his face in to her hair. The monitors beeping was the only sound for a time. Slowly, Oliver placed a soft kiss on he temple where the head trauma from the accident had been. "I can try," he said with determination. "I will _always _try," he vowed.

"'kay," Felicity said, on the edge of falling asleep. "Just don't do anything stupidly pig-headed. No bubble wrapping. Now sleep."

Neither of them spoke for another long moment but Lance could tell from the tension in Oliver's body that he hadn't fallen asleep yet. Frankly Lance doubted he would until one of the doctors showed up to give Felicity a clean bill of health. He made a mental note to stop by the nurses station on his way out and turned to go. He had seen enough. Felicity would be alright and Lance was sure she would be able to pull Oliver with her.

It had still been a horrible scare for everyone involved. Further proof that planning for every bad situation on Earth couldn't actually change the fact that the universe was screws-loose crazy. The world was one big accident.

And they were all smack in the god damn middle of it.

**A/N: So what did you think? It was my first time writing off of a specific prompt so I hope it was decent. You guys can look up the prompt in the reviews if you want, otherwise just consider it another chapter of Olicity goodness. Open for more prompts if you've got them! Review for me! xoxoxoxooxoxoxooxxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxooxxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo **


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I own nothing! Everything you recognize here belongs to DC, Andrew Kreisberg, Marc Guggenheim, and whoever else might own the rights to Arrow over at the CW. Being sued for copyright infringement by any of these people would seriously suck and be utterly not worth it. Seriously, I have no money of my own.**

For all of that though, Lance knew that Oliver Queen had never actually been an alcoholic. He had definitely been a heavy and habitual drinker, but Lance had noted during his teenaged years that Queen really only drank out of boredom. After he had ended p attending his own AA meetings, he had realized that alcoholics were really the people who chose to drink in order to not have to deal with the rest of their problems. Queen and Merlyn had lived the kinds of lives where they didn't really have those kinds of problems.

During the five years Oliver had been gone Lance wouldn't have been surprised if Oliver's rather impressive tolerance had decreased slightly. After all, it had been a deserted island. The fact that the kid had even managed to find drinkable water was nearly a miracle. Lance happened to know for a fact that Queen had never had any form of wilderness survival training. Boy Scouts hadn't exactly been his activity of choice. Then again, before the island he hadn't possessed the martial arts skills to make your typical Green Beret cry.

Surprisingly (or maybe not considering how you looked at it), when Oliver had first arrived back home it had seemed like the partying aspect of is life had hardly changed at all. Lance knew for a fact that one of the first public comments Queen had made upon his return had been "I missed Tequila!" It didn't exactly point to a healthy life style choice.

Watching carefully though, Lance had started to notice that that wasn't necessarily true. When Lance had gone to Oliver's ridiculous prison themed house party he had found the younger man completely stone cold sober and alert. Other events and parties that Lance had attended while the Queen's were also present had shown the policeman that more often than not Oliver would take a glass of whatever was being offered, and then set it back down without drinking any of it.

That was actually one of the biggest behavioral changes Lance had noted when he had first returned. Apart from the obvious physical changes which were obvious. Anyone could see that Queen was standing taller, and he had obviously ended up bulked out. Much as he hated to admit it then, Lance couldn't help but notice that Oliver had gotten more serious.

It was one of the aspects that had fueled Lance's suspicions of Oliver being the Hood originally. If Queen was actually just a returned party boy who hadn't changed at all (despite all of his good reasons t have pulled a character 180) he would be drinking alcohol like water. If Oliver had actually dropped the habit entirely he wouldn't have even bothered pretending to drink. He would have just done a television interview about how his traumatic experience had caused him to make a life change. If you were trying to cover something up, something that required perfect focus and depth perception, you pretended you still drank while not actually taking in a drop.

At least, that was how Lance saw it.

Now knowing the truth, Lance was borderline shocked Oliver _hadn't _turned to alcoholism. He had heard plenty of veterans with PTSD at his weekly meetings who discussed turning to alcohol as a way to cope with everything they had seen and done. The Kid was clearly a prime candidate for the same kinds of issues so it would have made sense.

But conversely the more Lance watched the less it seemed true. Quentin had really only seen Oliver drink a few times. Once had been at a group dinner at Diggle's house where he had had a beer and watched the weekend football game with John in a stunningly rare scene of domestic normality. The second, third and fourth times had been single shots of vodka consumed on the anniversaries of Moira's and Tommy's deaths, and on Thea's birthday. Lance could assume there had been a few glasses of champagne on celebratory or public occasions where it was unavoidable but he hadn't taken particular notice.

None of Team Arrow actually drank that much. Lance had noticed from watching that Queen's drink of choice had transferred from lighter fluid style alcohol to more pricy Russian vodka. Sara's tastes had apparently transferred from whatever she could get without her dad noticing to authentic Japanese Sake. Laurel was now (thankfully) not drinking. Lance chose not to even contemplate Thea and Roy's drinking. Acknowledging it in thought meant he was ignoring another completely illegal act in addition to everything else he wasn't arresting people for. Diggle was a simple single malt or beer drinker, and Felicity seemed to enjoy red wine.

As Cisco had commented each and every time he had visited. None of the team members drank or had fun nearly as much as you would expect for a group that had spent a solid three years working directly under a nightclub. In a new twist, Lance had overheard Felicity and Caitlin Snow trying to figure out a new alcohol compound that could actually get Barry drunk because apparently it was a lot harder than you would think.

As far as Lance could tell Oliver didn't even use alcohol as a slightly less mind-fogging method of pain numbing. In fact, Oliver didn't even seem to use pain medication. It was like the kid had given up on pain meds and antibiotics. Lance could only actually remember one time he had seen Oliver use pain killers.

Oliver had come in to their new operations base on the top floor of Palmer Technologies with a limp. "Are you okay?" Felicity asked, spinning around in her tech chair and moving to join him at the med table.

"Yeah fine," Oliver said through a slight wince.

Lance saw Felicity roll her eyes. "I know our definitions of fine are incredibly different but you're limping which is not fine in my world and since it's making you limp clearly it's not okay in your world therefore it is _so _not fine." She was moving around Oliver rapidly as she gathered up syringes, gauze, and medical tape.

Oliver put a hand out, catching her lightly around the forearm, stopping her rant and her anxious movements. "Seriously Felicity," he said with a sort of calming sincerity. "It's not a new injury. Just a flare up in my knee from last May." He moved one hand down and Lance saw that both of his hands were now holding both of hers against his chest. "One quick injection and I'm good to go."

Felicity sighed. "Fine, I'll grab one out of the med fridge of creepy injections. Just-" she made vague stopping motions with both hands, "stay put. And sitting. Yeah, sitting is definitely preferable right now."

"Okay," Oliver promised. Lance actually managed to see the small smile on his face. It made him look almost disgustingly gooey. The kind of sappy look that Lance could have sworn up and down eight years ago would never genuinely cross Oliver Queen's face alcohol soaked, epically high as a kite, or completely and utterly sober.

The blonde tech genius moved away toward the back room where Lance now knew a row of medical freezers and refrigerators stood filled with necessary drug and blood samples. Granted, most of the drugs were the kind that Palmer's science team was trying to work out antidotes for. The blood was also mostly the kind that was kept on hand in case rapid infusions ended up necessary. They were used scarily often.

A moment later Felicity returned holding a vial of pain medication. Lance noted Diggle slipping to the side and towards a drawer that held medical braces. Just in case.

"Thank you," Oliver said, reaching for the vial and syringe.

Felicity slapped his fingers away much the way Dinah used to chastise Lance when he tried to taste her cooking before she was done with it. "No," she scolded lightly. "We are measuring the dosage this time. No random inject the whole vial stuff like you and Dig do."

"I've been trying to break that habit," Diggle chipped in.

Oliver made a face but conceded. "Fine."

Felicity smiled and filled the syringe. She tapped the tube to get rid of any of the bubbles and then hesitated before injecting the liquid. "Okay," she admitted. "So I still think that this part is totally gross and I still really don't like pointy things..."

Lance saw Oliver's expression soften a bit as he took the needle from her and injected it's contents in to his knee. "There," he said, putting the syringe to the side. "It'll be fine in about ten minutes."

"Great," Felicity said. "Then let's head home. And I'm driving. Or Dig is. If your leg goes numb or something while your driving it is seriously going to suck."

Lance heard Oliver laugh slightly even though it sounded like he was starting to feel tired. "I thought the whole point of you doing the correct dosage was that my limbs going numb wouldn't happen."

Felicity waved a hand dismissively. "Well we've never done correct dosing before. Who knows what it might do to you?"

As it turned out, correct dosages of pain killers on Oliver Queen did exactly what it was supposed to do. It eliminated pain, and made him a little bit tired. The slightly loopy edge was incredibly enjoyable for Lance to watch actually. Though on another level it was a little terrifying. Take the most dangerous person around and then take away their normal judgment and self-control. Oops.

To say the least Lance had learned from that particular conversation and it's repercussions why Oliver tended to not really use Pain Killers. Or alcohol, or really anything that was a reflex or control inhibitor. When a loss in control could mean life ad death, Lance could understand why Oliver would avoid anything that could mess with it.

The next time Lance ever saw Oliver drink was at a wedding. If you had told Quentin Lance that some day he would walk Oliver Queen's bride down the isle to the alter he probably would have responded with the words "over my dead body." And yet, there he had been.

He had performed his scripted job as according to Thea who with Felicity's approval and Oliver's credit card had planned everything. Then he had sat down and listened to the vows. He hadn't cried, not a bit, he didn't care what Laurel said.

After that there had been a break for dancing. Which Lance knew Oliver and Thea would have rather avoided due to being forced through cotillion classes but had still included it as an unavoidable part of tradition. Then there had been dinner where Lance had been seated at the very end of the main table next to Laurel who had served as a bridesmaid with Thea and Lyla.

As the night went on most of the main table had veered off, either to the dance floor or as in the case of Diggle and Lyla to take their daughter home. What the emptiness meant was that Lance was close enough to hear Oliver and Felicity talking quietly over the sound of the guests who were still around.

The size of the guest list had actually surprised Lance given that he knew for a fact that Oliver and Felicity essentially shared the same ten or so friends, but he realized afterwards that it really shouldn't have. After all, you couldn't really have the wedding of the major owners of two thirds of one of the most wealthy companies in the world without inviting members of the press and political connections.

Felicity poured two glasses full of wine and leaned sideways in to Oliver's shoulder. "So you finally remembered to bring around that bottle of wine," Felicity said with a smile. "I have to say that was easily one of your worst excuses."

Oliver's tone was one of mock offense. "I was actually kind of proud of that one," he said. Lance could just see Felicity's skeptical expression. "What?" Oliver continued. "Rich Kid ultimate scavenger hunt? I thought that was a good one."

"Came in right under running out of sports bottles on the horrible excuse scale," she informed him. "And that one seriously sucked. Wait, would that be below or above on the excuse scale? And by that I mean would it be better or worse. I guess it's like the difference between going one to ten or ten to one-"

Oliver leaned over and kissed her to end the long babble. "Okay," he conceded. "Yeah it was a horrible excuse. And bribing you with wine was not my best move. Still, I would like to think that I came through eventually."

Lance didn't actually know what they were talking about but he was willing to bet there was a good story behind it. Well, if not a good story at the very least an entertaining one. Quentin may have long since abandoned his personal issues with Oliver Queen but he still drew a slightly vindictive joy from his embarrassment and hardships. At least, the non-deadly kind of hardships.

"Indeed you did," Felicity replied. "In incredibly delicious ways." Lance couldn't see it but he could practically hear her embarrassment humming through the air. "I meant-" she started, trying to correct.

"I know what you meant," Oliver assured. "And the wine is definitely good to." Lance made a face. One of the mega-large downsides to overhearing private conversations was hearing things that grossed you out. There was some stuff he just didn't need to know.

"Not that you'd know," Felicity said, and Lance could pick out the teasing tone behind the words. "You've barely had any of it." Lance turned a little in his seat and could see Felicity turn to look completely at Oliver. "This is a good day Oliver," she said so quietly Quentin almost couldn't hear it. "I think you can afford a glass today."

Oliver smiled. "I know. There's just always some little voice inside my head that never lets me completely let it go."

"Well," Felicity admitted. "To be fair the last time I handed you alcohol I did drug you, usurp your wishes, and try to kidnap you out of Nanda Parbat. One time and we don't seem to move past it... In vino veritas I guess."

From his angle Lance could see Oliver's eyebrows dart together in confusion. "What?"

Lance heard Felicity's light, happy laugh. "You speak like six languages and after all of those fancy prep schools you went to you still don't know Latin. I thought that was like, the required language for prep schools everywhere."

Quentin heard Oliver sigh heavily. "Yeah well, if Latin had been a language available at Excelsior or any of the four colleges I dropped out of I can honestly say that I almost definitely wouldn't have taken it. When I learned the other languages it was more about what would keep me from ending up dead than learning a dead language."

"It means in wine there is truth," Felicity translated. "I was actually always a little confused between weather it was just the ancient Roman way of saying 'the proof is in the pudding' or the ancient version of the philosophy of guys always telling the truth when they're drunk."

"I'm not actually sure I ever did tell the truth drunk," Lance heard Oliver admit. "Drunk me pretty much just made bad decisions."

Felicity smiled with a bit of a mocking edge. "Well I think our first three years of knowing each other proved that your version of a bad decision isn't always everyone's version of a bad decision."

"I know marrying you was a good one," Oliver said in the same quietly intense voice that Lance always felt was almost too private to hear. "The best one I've ever made."

Felicity leaned over to kiss him and Lance decided that it was a good time to check in with Laurel for the night. He wasn't the most sentimental person, but even he agreed that all newlyweds deserved private time on their wedding day.

His wedding night was the only time Quentin Lance ever saw Oliver Queen drink an entire glass of wine. And it was a glass of wine with a story behind it.

And that story held an extremely important truth.

**A/N: So what did you guys think? I saw an interesting interview with Stephen Amell where he commented on how it was originally written in to the script that Oliver was always eating or drinking something before the writers realized it wouldn't really work with the character. I thought it would be interesting to write something where Lance could note that meaning something. I hope you guys liked the ridiculously fluffy sweetness towards the end! Review for me! xoxoxoxooxoxooxxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**

**P.S. I have two summer camps in a row starting next week that together will last for about a month. I can bring my computer with me though so I'll try to keep posting but it might be a while in between them. Please be patient with me and don't abandon this Fic if there's a bit of a gap between this and the next few chapters. Love you all! **

**Reviews are happiness. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: So, I so completely own absolutely nothing. Like, the amount of nothing I own greatly exceeds the level of nothing. Therefore the nothing I own has reached the level of something. Nothing is something! Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Don't sue me!**

Captain Quentin Lance would never lay any claim to being any sort of medical expert. He took yearly refresher courses on CPR, trauma treatment, and first aid. He also spent a decent amount of time learning about gunshot treatments. On the job injury training that came from being a father also meant he had covered basics bumps and bruises.

However, even he happened to know that oxygen was relatively important. In fact, he would personally place the importance level of oxygen as fairly essential. It was really more the definition of something essential. At least, essential for living beings.

If people happened to run out of oxygen then those people stopped breathing. When people stopped breathing their hearts stopped working and their organs and other important things shut down. This he knew led to imminent death.

This made it extremely unfortunate that Lance actually needed several fingers to count up the number of times he had seen key members of Team Arrow (namely Oliver and Felicity) operating extremely short on oxygen. Personally he would have preferred to have the people he cared about, no matter how begrudgingly, fully stocked on the essentials. As was previously established, oxygen fell in to that category.

The first time it happened he had witnessed Felicity Smoak go in to anaphylactic shock from eating a chocolate chip cookie that had had peanut oil in the batter. She had made a slight choking sound and gestured frantically at her throat. Lance had realized and begun to move but Oliver had been in motion before Lance's eyes had time to track the motion.

Oliver had flipped her purse over, extracted an epi-pen from the mess that had spilled out and jabbed the injection in to her thigh. Moments later her breathing had already begun to ease, but there had been one terrifying moment when her breathing hadn't eased and it looked as though the treatment hadn't worked. Oliver had lifted her up and brought her to the md table where Diggle, who had been only seconds slower on the uptake had already pulled out an oxygen mask.

When Felicity had gotten her breath back she had dropped the oxygen mask and glanced between the three men. Her eyes landed on Oliver's and she sighed. "Not that I don't appreciate you helping, but sometime in the near future when I'm sure I can breath we might have to discuss you carrying me around when bad stuff happens. I'm not Lois Lane. And by that I mean not the cartoon version. The version and Smallville was actually a bit kickass. A bit like Laurel..."

Lance felt like he equal parts wanted to shake some sense in to her and verbally ream her for the scare she had caused and laugh out loud in relief. Oliver laughed with a small shake of the head. Lance could hear the panic and relief in equal measures in his voice. He leaned forward and placed a small kiss on her forehead just under her hair line, reaching out and running his hands over her arms. "Take a second to breath and later we can talk about anything you want."

Lance personally was still in favor of carting Felicity off to the nearest hospital emergency room with all the sirens on. However, he figured if Oliver (the overprotective stubborn bulldog) had resigned himself to the fact that that wouldn't be happening then it was about time to give up on that idea.

If there was a single person on the planet who was more stubborn than Oliver it was Felicity. It was part of what made the two of them such a terrifying united force. Lance had noticed that if the two of them ever agreed on something then anything getting in the way would probably have been flattened. Frequently Oliver would attempt to be more stubborn than Felicity was only to be worn down insistently until he capitulated or played deaf until whatever had been discussed had passed.

The next time Lance had witnessed either Oliver or Felicity run drastically short on oxygen it had been Oliver. A new semi-radical criminal group had attempted to kidnap Oliver and had only managed it by knocking him on the back of the head with a cement block. They had wanted information on a new project being run by Queen Consolidated. They had wanted Oliver Queen not the Arrow.

The criminals hadn't managed to get anything from Oliver but it had hardly been for lack of trying. If the Oliver Queen they had expected to kidnap and interrogate had been the one they had actually gotten they would have gotten everything they were after. As for the lacking in oxygen... well, there was a reason that members of more modern governments had outlawed waterboarding.

Diggle had performed immediate CPR when they had arrived while Thea and Laurel had cleared the perpetrators in to a corner so that Lance's cops could arrest them. Quentin had then made sure everyone not in the know about Oliver's Green Secret had cleared the building and doubled back to check on him. The scene he had found had been none to pretty.

Oliver was propped up against a dirty wall with Diggle's arm around one shoulder to hold him that way. He was coughing up briny looking water at a concerning rate. As Lance watched, he fell back with a gasp. Lance could see his chest heave as his lungs worked double time to fill themselves with air after being repeatedly deprived of it.

"Are you going to be okay man?" Diggle asked with concern. Oliver nodded tiredly, swallowed, and then winced. "Okay," Diggle said helping reluctantly as Oliver attempted to stand. "Let's get you back to the van and to base so Felicity can check on you herself."

Lance saw Oliver nod and pushed open the door so that Diggle could help Oliver through. "Exactly how much of her loud voice am I in for?" he asked.

Diggle shrugged. "Probably not too much until tomorrow at least. For now man, she's probably just going to be happy you can breath again." Quentin could hear the sigh of relief Oliver let out at that. "I'm not going to lie though," Diggle started. "She's been pretty freaked out for the last couple hours, and she is going to draw your blood and make you take antibiotics."

Squinting in to the dim light Lance could see Oliver pulling a face. It almost made him want to laugh. Oliver's expression was exactly the same as the one Lance had seen him pull when he was seven and had had to take medicine for Strep Throat. Of course, that version had been a little damp and a little bit more able to breath. Plus a bacteria and some oxygen he supposed.

The next time it had happened, Oliver and Felicity had both managed to catch the flu. Lance supposed it shouldn't have been that surprising for Oliver to catch something. After all, the guy spent every night out stopping crime rain or shine. Lance guessed that all of the time spent on the island had probably given him a pretty killer immune system, but germs were apparently always changing.

Felicity had caught the bug from Oliver after having flat out refused to leave him alone. She had also neglected to actually get a flu shot when everyone else had. "Getting voluntarily jabbed with a little pointy needle?" she had ranted. "No thank you. Besides, my exposure to people is limited to you guys anyway. And the last time one of us got a flu shot it was Dig and there was Vertigo in it!"

Thea hadn't hesitated to quote those exact words back to her when she and Laurel had dropped off supplies at the door of Oliver's bedroom. Lance figured that had pretty much covered all relevant "I told you so's". So instead of saying anything he had called in to the precinct saying he was going to be late and gone down to the kitchen to find supplies for soup.

When he had brought it upstairs he had heard a loud cacophony of coughing and wheezing. "Not being able to breath sucks," Felicity managed.

"Uh huh," Oliver's voice muttered, followed by the rustling of blankets as he turned over. "I love it when you babble but it's probably not a good plan right now."

"Kay," Felicity said between sneezes. "Sit up so the icky stuff doesn't go in your throat."

Lance heard Oliver grumble and knocked once on the door. He heard someone roll out of bed and a few footsteps moved towards the door before it opened. It revealed Oliver with a few days worth of extra stubble. The concerning thing though was his eyes.

Quentin had seen Oliver look bright and happy as a little boy. He had seen his eyes tired, sad, and drunk. But his eyes had almost always seemed alert. Especially lately. But just now they seemed just exhausted and glassy. He glanced down at the soup Lance held. "Your old recipe?" he asked.

Lance nodded. "Had some time this morning and I figured... you know. Well, you two already can't breath, I figured you might as well be fed."

Oliver nodded and managed a small, grateful expression. "Thank you."

"Yeah well," Lance said, suddenly feeling awkward about the earlier impulse he had had to cook in the first place. He just hadn't been able to fight the impulse to take care of the two of them. Fatherly instincts kicking in and resurfacing at a high gear. "Just, take care of yourself okay? You and her both."

The nod he got in return would have been much more reassuring if Oliver hadn't been swaying on his feet. Oliver pulled in a deep breath that Lance could actually hear catch in his throat. Then he turned and moved in to the room again.

Several long stories made short, Lance had seen Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak both very short of oxygen in a few different situations. Drowning was one of them. Then there was anaphylactic shock which presented a whole different ball game. Other varieties had arrived in the forms of panic attacks, the flu, torture, pneumonia, and in one particularly memorable occasion the collapsed remains of a brick and cinderblock wall

After that last one Oliver had luckily been around people who had seen him in his business clothes. The legitimate kind not the vigilante one. He had been taken to a hospital in time for his crushed left rung to be repaired and re-inflated. Then it had just been a little while for Oliver's lungs to both stay that way. That particular hospital trip had also involved the setting and taping of a few cracked ribs. Panic on the parts of Felicity and Thea had generally abounded.

Captain Quentin Lance knew almost nothing about medicine apart from CPR and emergency first aid. His best version of illness care involved a special version of chicken noodle soup he was pretty sure had originally come from the back of a can. But he did know that oxygen was very incredibly important for the continued welfare of any member of the human species. And not just the human species. More like, all things living.

He had seen too many people he cared about lacking in oxygen too damn many times for him to count.

Maybe it was time to add an oxygen tank to the back of his squad car...

**A/N: So how did I do. I'm not so sure this is my best chapter but I needed to get something written to flex the right brain muscles. Still, tell me what you think! I'm sorry it took so long to get this posted. I'm also sorry, t this will probably be the last one for a little while. I'm still at camp and it is incredibly busy. Review for me! xoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxooxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I own nothing you can possibly recognize from being on TV. If someone is making any money from this it isn't me.**

Lance had discovered that Oliver Queen was a remarkably touchy person. Not touchy as in "touchy feely." Well, okay maybe a little bit touchy feely, but not in the emotional way. Let's face it, emotionally that kid could batten down the hatches like a sail boat in a hurricane. Lance more meant physically touchy.

For a person who could physically contain himself like a leper if he had to, Lance had discovered that Oliver could actually be remarkably tactile. That shouldn't actually have been news. Oliver had been a generally touch and movement oriented person for almost as long as Lance could remember.

When Oliver had been little he had nearly crushed Sara's belief in the Tooth Fairy when she had been six by telling her it didn't exist. Lance had asked why, half dreading that Moira and Robert Queen had crushed out things like magic and Santa in their son already. Instead, Oliver had just shrugged and said, "Real stuff is stuff you can hold and see and stuff right? I can't hold the Tooth Fairy."

That had been that. As a little kid Oliver Queen had generally believed in the stuff he could touch and hold to confirm that it was real.

It was probably a handy emotional state for him. Tommy Merlyn and Thea had both been a little bit like that to. All of them were kids whose parents were almost always away or not around. It was easier to split off from people and emotionally separate from them if they were gone so often you could pretend they didn't exist.

When Oliver had been a teenager Lance had noticed that that tactile nature had transitioned into a more reactionary process. The propensity he had for touch had translated in to more direct and often (in Lance's opinion) stupid actions.

If Oliver could punch a member of the paparazzi for being too prying or persistent, then he felt he had made his point. If he could break a window or put some graffiti on a wall teenaged Oliver had seemed to feel that he had made a point or proved something.

Lance refused to even think about how much a tactical nature might effect Oliver's dating life as a teenager. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not going to even try to consider that one. Way too scarring. Quentin Lance was perfectly happy living on the large river in Egypt when it came to considering the equation that went Oliver Queen + Lance's Daughter + Touching.

Oliver Queen was a person who needed concrete action to feel that something had happened. Sometimes it could be something he could just see or hear, but Lance had noticed a long time ago that most of the time it needed to be something he could touch.

On a level Quentin figured it was probably a denial system:

You can hear it? Plug your ears.

See it? No problem. Shut your eyes.

Smell it? Plug your nose.

Taste it? Mouthwash was invented for a _reason _people!

But if you could actually _touch _something. If something or someone could _touch _you.. then yes it had to be real. Oliver used that system to check in his life what exactly he had to actually deal with. Of course, when Oliver had been a stupid teenager/ kid in his early twenties, Lance hadn't really gotten how much he could possibly have to deal with. He was a freaking billionaire after all.

On a brighter side-at least if Lance didn't think through it too hard- Oliver was tactile with the people he cared about or was friendly with. When Thea had been six and Oliver had been sixteen Lance had seen him carry her piggyback for a nearly two hour hike, and while Lance didn't necessarily approve of Queen and his daughter Oliver had never been shy about hugging her and providing comfort when he noticed Laurel having a bad day. Too bad he had only noticed once in a while. He and Tommy had always been cheery about high fives and friendly mock punches. Lance had also had occasion to notice first hand that somewhere along the line the kid's father had made the time to teach his son the value of a proper handshake.

That had been one of Lance's major clues that something was seriously different with Oliver Queen when he had returned to Starling City after being stranded on Lian Yu. The touching had come to a sudden and abrupt stop.

Oliver now seemed to project a bubble around himself. Lance wasn't exactly sure what it was, but the sort of reckless lightness Ollie Queen the tabloid darling had projected had seeped away and frozen over. His eyes had gone cold and each of his movements was contained. It was as though something in his very aura was now projecting a very clear message: **Do Not Touch.**

Lance saw that Oliver did a good job of covering it over in public or when he thought people were expecting something else from him. It was an artificial warmth that Oliver put on like throwing a blanket over an iceberg. But he was still contained.

Quentin had seen the blanket slip a few times. When it did, a cold almost primal sort of message to back off and keep a safe distance was clearly telegraphed. It was the sort of natural message Lance had seen killers and even a few ex-special forces and army members project. It was a natural caution to keep others safe.

Of course, that wasn't always true immediately after Oliver had arrived home. He still hugged Thea. He still shook hands with businessmen and occasionally provided an arm or his hand for Moira. However, when Tommy patted him on the shoulder, or random people brushed against him in public it was impossible for Lance not to notice that he immediately tensed.

Lance supposed that this was partially Oliver's own personal survival instincts coming in to play. If you've lived for five years in an environment where any touch could inflict pain or death you start to be wary of someone tapping you on the back.

But it was definitely something to notice as a police officer during an interrogation. When a kid was so open to touch, and believed that touch was the only way to confirm that something was real it made an impression. It made an even bigger impression when that same kid suddenly held himself perfectly still with a solid five foot radius from everyone else in the room.

As time passed and Lance was brought in on Oliver's Green Secret he had begun to notice that he was more relaxed tactically with some people than with others. In fact, with most of Team Arrow things that involved touch were generally judged as the most normal way to communicate.

Lance had seen Oliver and Diggle mock fight with large sticks at a level that would have taken most people's entire concentration. The fight had ended with Diggle on the ground still glaring up at Oliver who had let the stick drop and then sighed. They had been talking about the logistics of taking on a few members of the Triad at a gala Charity event before they had started the fight. "Okay you have a good point," Oliver had conceded.

Quentin wasn't the least bit ashamed to admit that it had taken him a solid ten minutes to figure out that those words had connected to the conversation the two men had been having before.

Tactile communication with Thea hadn't actually changed much from when she had been a tiny little girl who charged around in bright pink sneakers. It was actually an incredible relief for Lance to see that going through hell hadn't completely ruined some of the better bits of who he had used to be.

Oliver watched Oliver communicate through touch with Roy a couple of times. Once it had been just one squeeze of the hand that was a little too tight when Harper had been going to take Thea out to dinner. The message had been a very clear, "watch yourself around my sister." Harper had nodded and pulled his hand back. A whole conversation without a word. Other times had been pats on the shoulder that normally said things like "good job tonight" or "go home."

It was strange to see but Oliver's communication with Laurel remained wholly verbal and normally very stilted. On a level as a regular person and witness it was just awkward. As a dad, Lance kind of wanted to thank every major and minor deity anyone had ever believed in. It was really just a left over reflex from his days as a dad who disapproved of Oliver Queen dating his daughter.

With Felicity Smoak though, Oliver's general propensity to touch seemed to hit a new level of oblivious over drive. At least it wasn't inappropriate touching. At least not originally or even now later even though they were together and the inappropriate kind of touch was probably happening Lance could definitely live in obliviousness and pretend it wasn't.

In the beginning of Lance being able to observe Oliver and Felicity interact he had been taken aback by the casualness of how much and how naturally Queen did seem to touch Felicity. It wasn't even just that he was comfortable with it, he actually seemed to expect Felicity to be close enough to him for that to be possible.

When Lance had stopped by Queen Consolidated a few times to deliver notes on whatever crime the kid had somehow gotten himself involved in. Of course, the 'somehow' had been much more clearly defined when Lance found out about the whole Vigilante situation. The first few times he had been around Lance hadn't really noticed. Then things had begun to stack up.

Felicity had walked in to the room just as Lance had been about to leave and greeted him with a bright smile. "Hi Detective Lance," she said, then immediately tried to back up. "I mean, officer. Because now your officer Lance. Not detective. But you definitely should be. A detective that is. Of course I meant Detective what else is there that you should be? Oliver stop me."

Oliver had just smiled at her slightly and swung his jacket on. "Felicity I would never dream of making you stop talking." He had actually sounded a level of sincere that had been surprising to Lance. Then he looked at detective Lance. "Thank you officer for coming to bring me up to speed."

Lance just nodded and moved out in to the wider part of the floor.

Felicity had pulled a face and checked the time on her tablet. "Are you ready to go for lunch? Dig's bringing the car around for Sushi. We thought about Thai, but you know, peanuts. And with peanuts comes me and allergies, and anaphylaxis, and not breathing, which means hospital visits. Then you and Diggle start trying to intimidate all of the food delivery people, and restaurants stop being willing to send us take out."

Queen sighed and moved passed Felicity to prop the door open. Lance saw his other arm come up behind her and brush against the small of her back. It remained there as they walked. Felicity was babbling again, Lance thought she heard something about Emperor Penguins. Oliver was just looking down at her and seemed to be listening to every word. Neither of them seemed to notice.

In fact, one of Oliver's hands seemed to generally magnetize to the small of Felicity's back whenever they walked into or out of a room. When Felicity sat at her computer desk Oliver generally stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder.

Once Lance had been in the foundry watching Team Arrow train and donating the use of his police radio in the tracking of the latest corrupt stockbroker. Felicity was following up on the money trail of the same man. Diggle was cleaning and reassembling his firearms and Oliver was severely punishing a training dummy for crimes unknown. Laurel was running a patrol with Thea to keep the general crime rate down.

Then Felicity fist pumped and let out a shout of glee. "Got him!" she said.

Oliver backed away from the dummy immediately and came to stand behind Felicity to see the screens over her shoulder. "Where is he?" Lance highly doubted that Oliver noticed that the hands he had just used to pummel the heavy canvas sand bag had gravitated to her shoulders, cupping her shoulder blades. "Do you have a concrete location?"

Felicity leaned back in to his hands automatically and reached out to the keyboard. With two clicks the screen then displayed a G.P.S map with a colored marker over a popular hotel. "Greenmark Hotel on 43rd and Birch," Felicity relayed. "Room 609."

Lance saw Oliver's hands constrict slightly on her shoulders and slip up towards her neck as Felicity rolled her head to get rid of stiffness. "I've got it," Oliver said, backing away and walking towards the glass case that held the Arrow suite.

Diggle sighed and glanced over at Lance. "I don't even think they know they do that."

"You mean the whole touching thing?" Lance checked. "Is that as much of an always thing as I think it is or did that just start when they finally pulled their heads out of their asses and started dating?"

"Always," Diggle answered calmly, slotting his gun back together. "Believe it or not it was actually worse before the dating. At least now Oliver doesn't go guiltily brooding and look confused when he realizes he's doing it."

Lance noticed them walk down the street together a few times. Felicity was pretty much always talking emphatically or clicking away on her phone. Oliver simply steered her around a bicyclist and over a rain puddle with a hand on her elbow.

The only kind of touch Oliver actually flat out refused to engage in with Felicity was fighting. And by that Lance didn't mean bickering. Oliver and Felicity could bicker and argue like nobody else Lance had ever seen. Quentin Lance had even once had the chance to witness a complete knockdown, drag out fight between the two of them. It had been a little bit like watching a nuclear bomb implode. Terrifying in the moment, and then deadly quiet in the fallout.

What Lance meant by fight was that Oliver flat out refused to train-fight with Felicity. He trained with Diggle and even Thea plenty. Neither of them ever really seemed to have much of a shot at beating him, but Oliver at least looked like he was getting in a mini-workout. Oliver fighting with Nyssa was terrifying on a whole other level. Laurel had asked Oliver to train her once and received such a vehement "no" hat it just kind of hadn't come up again.

On a level, Lance appreciated that. On another level he thought maybe he should consider the vague possibility of sexism in action. Either way he couldn't really argue with one of the most deadly men in the world not wanting to be in a position where he could possibly murder his daughter. Parental privilege and all.

"I just can't do it Felicity," Oliver explained through clenched teeth. "I know training is a good thing. I would rather you knew how defend yourself than not. Diggle is doing a great job."

"But why not Oliver?" Felicity wondered, sounding frustrated and tired. "I've been watching you put literally everyone you've ever fought against on their asses or in their coffins for the last three years. Everyone always says you're supposed to learn things from people who are good at them."

Lance had seen Oliver clench his jaw even tighter. "Felicity," he said. "The reason I can fight as well as I do is because I don't ever hold back." His fingers reached out and wove into Felicity's without thinking about it. "When I fight it's like complete tunnel vision," he explained. "There is no half way. With Diggle I can have a secondary conversation and I won't have to worry so much. Fighting Nyssa actually means I have to concentrate to not get my ass kicked. Thea I try to avoid fighting with as much as possible but I can basically deal."

"Then why am I any different?" Felicity questioned, throwing up her free hand. Lance noticed that her other hand was still cradled between both of Oliver's. "If you can deal with fighting with your little sister I'm sure you could deal with training with me."

Lance saw Oliver shake his head. "Because there are very few things I'm afraid of. And I am absolutely and completely _terrified _that I will hurt you by accident." He reached up with one hand and caught the one Felicity had been using to gesture with. He brought it down in to his other hand and cradled them together.

Even Captain Lance who was generally about as sentimental as a desk lamp could grasp the symbolism and imagery there. Oliver's hands were scarred from wrists to fingertips and Lance had personally seen them punch holes in walls. Felicity's by contrast were small, long fingered and delicate. They almost seemed to vanish into Oliver's and Lance was suddenly struck by how easy it would have been for Oliver to crush every single one of the bones there in a matter of seconds if he wanted to.

"So much of your life is already darker, and more dangerous then it ever should be because of me," Oliver murmured. "And if I ever hurt you..." he trailed off and shook his head to locate the right words. "I don't think I would survive."

Felicity visibly wavered and Lance saw her shoulders relax. "Fine," she sighed. "Dig will train me, and maybe even Laurel. We've moved towards a strangely weird friendship bond..." Lance actually had to agree with that. That particular friendship had sort of come out of left field.

"I'm still going to punch you if I feel like you're being an overprotective, stubborn, misogynistic, asshole," Felicity warned.

"I would expect nothing less," Lance heard Oliver reply, brushing a lock of hair out of Felicity's eyes.

"Are you sure?" Felicity double checked. "Because these hands may be small but they're damn strong from all of the typing I do for both of our jobs all the time and I am nothing if not determined enough to keep going until I leave bruises."

Lance saw Oliver smile. "If you feel the need I will stand still and let you. We'll even find you some brass knuckles if you want."

Felicity grinned at him.

So okay maybe it wasn't emotionally touchy in the way some conversations between couples were, but it was still pretty damn adorable.

Bottom line, Oliver Jonas Queen was always the kind of person who needed touch. He used it to confirm that things were real. Each time something went wrong that led to Felicity being in danger Oliver would find her afterward and pull her in to a hug. Felicity had once been kidnapped by the triad and Lance hadn't seen Oliver more than the length of one ruler from her for the next week.

"You're here," Oliver had murmured over her head when they had first gotten to her.

That was actually his recurring comment.

Lance figured that on some level Felicity must have noticed too. Whenever Oliver seemed to be double checking where Felicity was, Lance would notice that she reached out and take his hand. Once when Oliver had recovered from a blow to the head that had knocked him unconscious he had jolted upright and looked around frantically. Felicity had stepped over and hugged him saying, "It's okay. I'm here."

So anyway, Oliver was a tactile person. If something was important and he needed to make sure it was real and actually there he had to touch it. If he was worried that someone was going to fade away he had to hang on to it. Lance could understand that.

Almost everything in the kid's life had been smashed into a million pieces with a sledgehammer time and time again. It made sense that when he needed to hold on to stuff he had to literally, you know, hold on to it. Sometimes that thing had to be people.

"You always do that you know," Lance hold Felicity say to Oliver one night when they were leaving a dinner the entire group had had.

"Do what?" Lance heard Oliver ask.

"Hug me," Felicity explained. "You put an arm around my shoulders when we, or hold my hand, or hold me around the waist. I just kind of wanted to know if you even noticed you did it."

Lance glanced over and saw Oliver frown. "Not really. Does it bother you."

"No," Felicity said with a smile. "It's nice. You're always warm, and honestly you're extremely cuddle-able for someone with as much muscle as you, I just kind of wondered."

"If I can touch you I know you're here," Oliver explained quietly. "It means you're safe, and close, and with me. It makes me feel like..."

Lance saw Felicity tuck herself into his side. "Like I'm safe?" she provided teasingly.

"No," Oliver said with a shake of his head. "It makes me feel like maybe I have a shot at not losing the thing I love most in the world. And that's not something I get to know very often."

Lance happened to think that under the circumstances Felicity was perfectly justified in leaning up to kiss Oliver, even if it was something he couldn't bare to watch given the general context of PDA. That said, some comments no matter who they were from were worth it.

Alright, so maybe Oliver Queen was a little bit emotionally touchy-feely.

**A/N: So how did I do? I wasn't completely sure about this chapter** **but I haven't written for so long and I felt like I needed to do some writing and get something posted. You guys can still always send me suggestions! Arrow is coming back pretty soon! Yay! Did anybody else watch Stephen Amell wrestle on WWE? Because that is just kind of amazing. Review for me! And send me prompts if you want something specific! Review! Review! Review! xoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooooxoxoxoxoxooxoxxxxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: The only thing that I own in this situation is my computer and a shipper heart that is slowly beginning to trust again after the trauma that was last season that may soon be crushed again if the writers of Arrow decide to be evil. *Sighs* It's totally going to be crushed again isn't it?**

Ollie Queen always talked with his hands as a little kid. He made big gestures and tapped his fingers on hard surfaces. It used to drive Lance nuts but at least he always knew when the kid was in the room, or more accurately (and probably more helpfully), he always knew when Oliver was feeling nervous or anxious

The first time Lance realized that particular tick was at the end of the school year in third grade. Laurel had dragged Oliver ad Tommy home with her because Tommy's father was working and Moira Queen had been put on bed rest while pregnant with Thea. Robert Queen was only about half way through a month long business trip in Russia.

Lance had said he would look after both boys along with Laurel while Dinah took Sara to a Mommy and Me class. He figured that if he was looking after them the two boys might get some actual parenting as opposed to just general supervision by an adult. He hadn't known that that was the day all of the students were getting their end of year report cards to take home.

From the kitchen window of the apartment Lance had watched every other kid spill off the bus. Oliver, Tommy, and Laurel had come off last from the back of the bus. Laurel had explained that the three of them always sat there because Ollie liked to watch everyone else and Tommy liked that the bus driver couldn't see the back row. Laurel herself liked that she could spread out across the seat and do homework on the way home.

He couldn't help the smile that tugged at the edges of his mouth as Oliver stopped at the road level and turned back to wait for Laurel. She called something down to him and Oliver listened before shrugging off his backpack and handing it to Tommy. He backed up to the bottom step and stood still while he let Laurel climb onto his back in the place of the bag. Queen and Merlyn had both gone through growth spurts recently but Oliver was slightly less gangly and awkwardly proportioned than Tommy was.

The three kids slowly made their way towards the building. Laurel was chatting animatedly about something right next to Queen's ear with her hands over his eyes. Lance's best guess was that Merlyn and Laurel were giving Oliver directions to see if he could do it blindfolded. They reached the door and Lance opened it so that all three of them tumbled in at once.

"Hey Mr. Lance," Tommy greeted, slipping past him and dropping both back packs he held on the floor near the kitchen table.

"Hey Daddy," Laurel greeted with a giggle, hands still clamped tight over Oliver's eyes. "We wanted to see if Ollie could make it all the way in to the house with his eyes shut. This was the best way to make sure he wasn't cheating.

Oliver sighed and twisted around, trying to move out of Laurels grasp. Looking back on the moment, Lance thought it was hard not to see that particular moment as prophetic. "I wasn't gonna cheat," Oliver mumbled. "Can I open my eyes now Laurel?"

"No!" Laurel laughed, holding a little tighter.

Lance saw Oliver frown under his daughters hands. "Why not?" he whined. "We made it to your house didn't we?"

"We're _at _my house," Laurel explained patiently. "We're not _in _my house. You said in to before."

Oliver heaved a deep breath and hitched Laurel up a little higher. He reached out blindly with one hand to feel for any objects in his way and took a careful step forward over the threshold. Lance stepped sideways, clearing the way and moving back into the kitchen. He watched, ready to intervene if it looked like Queen was about to trip on something and send himself and Laurel crashing to the floor.

But Queen made it all the way into the living room before pausing. Tommy plopped down on the couch to his left. "The couch is over hear Ollie," he called. Oliver followed his voice, playing a piggyback version of Marco Polo, one arm still stretched in front of him. "Ow!" Merlyn complained. "Don't smack me in the face Ollie!"

"Sorry," Lance heard Oliver mutter as his hands came in to contact with the couch cushion. He turned and dropped Laurel backwards on to the couch and rolled his shoulders, blinking as his eyes readjusted to the light.

Laurel bounced up off of the couch, her own backpack still in place. She grabbed Oliver and Tommy and ran back in to the kitchen, dragging both boys behind her. She spun her backpack around to her front and hopped up on to the kitchen counter. Tommy and Oliver each followed picking up their own bags. Tommy charged right up next to Laurel but Oliver followed a little more sedately.

"Our report cards came today Daddy!" Laurel informed him cheerfully. She was in the process of digging a small white envelope out of her purple backpack and then proceeded to open it. She did it carefully, cutting along the top with a pair of plastic safety scissors. Tommy simply ripped the entire top off the envelope. Laurel gave a crow of triumph and brandished her perfect report card for Quentin to see.

Lance smiled and wrapped her in a quick hug. "That's great sweetie," he had praised, turning and rearranging the magnets on the fridge so that the report was pinned in place. When he turned back around Tommy was pulling a face and stuffing the envelope back in to his bag.

Oliver's envelope was still sitting on the counter unopened. One of his hands lay on the countertop, tapping out a quick staccato rhythm. He seemed to notice Lance's eyes on him because he glanced up with a frown on his face. "Hey honey," Lance said to Laurel. "How's about you and Tommy go on into the living room and pick a movie while Oliver helps me set up somethin' to eat for you guys?

That was all the prompting Laurel needed to hop off the counter and pull Tommy after her out of the room. She was firing rapid questions at him about his own report card and Tommy was nimbly side stepping them. Lance shook his head. He could see that kid ending up in a heap of trouble one of these days.

Lance turned back to Oliver who was still staring at the envelope like he thought it might eat him. That or come to life and start shouting at him like something out of one of those Harry Potter books Dinah read out loud to the girls at night. Oliver's fingers were still tapping against the counter top.

"You okay there kid?" he asked. Oliver nodded. "Okay," Lance shrugged. "What then? Just not interested in checking out your grades?"

"I know'em already," Oliver replied, not looking at him.

His fingers continued to pick up speed until Lance dropped a hand flat over his, stilling the movement. "You have to quit it with the tapping Queen," he warned. "It's irritating. So, did you fail math or something?" Lance decided that was the better question as opposed to how exactly Olive had managed to learn what was on his report card before anyone else. Rich parents could get you a lot.

Oliver shook his head. "Got a B," he mumbled. His fingers had now begun to tap away at his thigh in place of the countertop. It made no sound so Lance couldn't say it bugged him.

"What was it then?" Lance continued, popping a bag of popcorn in to the microwave and hit start. "English?"

He didn't turn around but Oliver must have shaken his head because he answered in the negative. "No. I got a B in that to. Got a B in everything except Spanish. I got an A in that," Oliver looked up then and smiled. It was a smile that was bright and full of an almost defiantly happy pride, as though he was daring someone to tell him that that wasn't a good thing. "Senora Loreta says I've got a gift with it."

Lance leaned back across the counter towards the nine year old standing there. "So what's the problem?"

Oliver pulled a face. "The only person who's going to see it is Raisa. She's gonna put it in this file with all the others for when my Dad isn't working and my Mom isn't tired. But Dad's always working and Mom's been tired since _forever _and once the baby is here she's just going to be more tired and Dad's going to be working _forever _and the file is just going to go in to this file cabinet in the library. If it was really good they'd look at it, and if it was really bad they'd try to do something to fix it. But B is just normal. My parents don't have time for normal."

His fingers had started tapping against the counter again and Lance couldn't bring himself to make the kid stop. Not when most kids who had just said something like that would have already started crying. Lance wasn't so good with crying. But acting like a parent, well, he already had two kids he had practiced that on. He held out a hand and snapped his fingers. "Give it over Kid."

Looking slightly confused, Oliver complied with his right hand as his left continued it's rhythm against the counter top. It was much slower now though as Lance pulled his focus away from his parents. Quentin slit the top of the envelope with a practiced flick and extracted the report card. There was Oliver's full name with five classes and their grades. Two flat Bs two B+s and one A.

He tacked up the card on the fridge right next to Laurel's and pulled out the popcorn as it finished. He turned and handed the bag to a wide-eyed Oliver Queen who was starring at him like he'd just made the world pause and spin backwards. His hands had gone still on the counter. "Whenever your parents want to see it tell him to come over here and take a look. Okay?"

Oliver nodded and Lance waved him towards the living room where he could still hear Laurel and Tommy bickering over what movie to watch. "Now go and pick a movie no parent should ever let three kids watch and eat your freaking popcorn." Oliver seemed to sense that their talk was over and zipped away from the counter at top speed.

That was when Lance had really first noticed that when Oliver felt stressed or upset or couldn't deal with an emotion he seemed to transfer it to his hands. When the rest of him was under such rigid control he let his fingers break it so that everything else kept form. It was like his own little warning message that he was on an edge.

* * *

The finger tapping also bled over when Oliver was feeling impatient. When Thea had been born Lance ha driven Oliver to the hospital to meet her and had had to watch the kid almost beaten a bruise in to his own leg. The nurse had been reluctant to let a ten year old boy hold a newborn baby who had been born premature.

Lance had watched something amazing and almost a little bit scary happen then. Ten year old Oliver Queen had pulled himself up to his currently meager height and squared his scrawny shoulders. His eyes had narrowed as he put his hands on his hip. "That's _my _little sister in that crib," he'd started, sounding as cold and demanding as anyone in his family ever had. "She's really tiny and holding little babies helps them get stronger. "I _read _all about it. From an actual doctor book. If _I _want to hold _my _baby sister you _have to let me!"_

The nurse had gaped at him and speechlessly opened the industrial crib and handed over the tiny pink and white bundle. Lance stood ready to help support the tiny body but clearly Oliver had learned something from the reading he had been doing because he cradled the baby gently, if a little clumsily. He even remembered to support her head.

"Mom says you're named Thea," Oliver said, addressing her seriously. "My baby sister Thea. But that works two ways okay? You're my little sister and I'm you're big brother. You might have to remind me about that sometimes. I'm not always that great about caring about other people, but I'm going to try okay?"

Lance watched as he adjusted Thea up on his shoulder a little ways. "Tommy's my best friend," he continued. "Him and Laurel, so their kind of like your siblings to. Laurel has a little sister too. Sara. Maybe you two can be friends when you get bigger." Oliver adjust Thea to look at the top of her head. "Mom says you've got hair already but I don't think I should take your hat off. Everybody around here says you're supposed to stay warm.

Thea shifted in her blankets and wrapped a tiny hand around Oliver's thumb. Lance saw Oliver's anxious little face soften, and his hands were completely still as he held his little sister. After a few minutes the nurse took Thea back and put her in her crib. Lance noted with a slightly disturbed feeling that she asked the ten year old for permission first.

Oliver leaned against the glass wall of the crib as Thea twisted and pressed a hand against it. Oliver sank down on the floor in front of it and pressed his own palm against the glass over it. His thumb moved across the glass like he could touch Thea's tiny hand through it. Lance saw his face crinkle in to a serious expression, his thumb not breaking it's movement. "I'm going to protect you Thea," he said. "I promise."

Lance saw Oliver break a lot of promises in his lifetime, but that was never one of them.

* * *

Oliver's fingers tapped away when he was impatient and waiting for things to happen. Lance noticed it when he chaperoned school field trips to amusement parks and zoos. At bars when he had to wait for a drink to be served his fingers picked up a rhythm against the countertop. Whenever Oliver had to wait in a very long line his fingers started tapping against his leg, against a table or a wall, or against each other. Luckily for Oliver, he happened to have enough money to open new lines. And if Verdant was any indication, new bars.

The point was, if you had known Oliver for long enough it became fairly clear that he expressed emotion and talked with his hands. This was an incredibly helpful thing in some circumstances though. Like life threatening, or crucial business ones.

In the beginning of Oliver's first ever mayoral term (because yeah, that happened) he had been kidnapped. As it turned out, no one else had actually wanted that job after the last few people to hold it had died. Oliver had run with minimal opposition, and won by a landslide. Everyone, including Team Arrow had voted for Oliver sheerly out of a desire to see what would happen. As it turned out, several remarkably good things including a clean energy initiative, and multiple programs to benefit foster systems and recovery in the Glades.

Anyway, Oliver had been kidnapped by several relatively intelligent thugs who at the very least had had the decency to try to scramble their location when they sent their ransom video to the mayor's office. Felicity had beaten the scrambler and had the location in minutes, but Lance felt like he had to at least acknowledge the effort. Credit where credit was due and all that.

In the video Lance had held perfectly still apart from one hand by his side. the fingers of his right hand had clicked together in rapid succession. To most people, this would have looked like nothing more than a nervous tick. After all, as far as the public was concerned their mayor was a pretty normal guy. Albeit a former castaway billionaire playboy.

However, to Diggle the clicking had been a clear message. The massive bodyguard had leaned up close to the camera and focused in on the tiny portion of the screen that contained Oliver's fingers. "That's military," he said. "Quick code. Three, that's the floor he's on," Diggle waited another moment. "Four," he said gesturing at the screen. "That's the number of windows. Then one," Diggle backed away and loaded his gun. "One door. Do you have the location Felicity?"

"Right here," Felicity said, spinning in her chair and handing Diggle a sticky note with the address scribbled on it. "It's an abandoned warehouse. It's actually only four blocks South of here which is really ironic when you think about it. I mean, they kidnapped Oliver from his office and then brought him like, less than a mile from our secret underground base. Is that ironic? I might have defined that wrong..."

"I'll bring you a dictionary when we bring my brother back," Thea called, already on her way out the door behind Diggle. "Tell Laurel to meet us there!"

Lance moved out after them and used the radio in his squad car to coordinate police efforts so that Team Arrow would have minimal involvement. Things between the SCPD and vigilantes were still a little strained. Besides, not enough time had gone by between Oliver being accused of being the Arrow and this kidnapping for every other vigilante in the city to charge to his rescue without it arousing suspicion. Lance got the feeling Oliver would have gotten out himself within five minutes if he weren't trying to fly under the radar a little more these days.

After about forty minutes, the kidnapers were on their way to booking and Oliver was standing safely on the pavement in front of several news cameras. He gave an excellent speech extolling the virtues of the SCPD and promising a sizeable charitable donation to the yearly fund. From a political standpoint, it was a freakishly good speech. From a personal standpoint, Lance couldn't deny that the perfect political delivery gave him the creeps.

The slight rubbing of his thumb over his index finger was the only indication that he was at all uncomfortable in front of the cameras. "Thank you very much and goodnight," Oliver concluded, turning away from the cameras. He was immediately greeted with an armful of blonde IT genius. "Hey," Lance heard him murmur softly. His arms wrapped around her as he pressed a kiss into Felicity's hair. Then his hands were still.

* * *

As it turned out, Oliver could communicate more directly with his hands than Lance had thought. This had been demonstrated when he had gone by Oliver's office. It was the bi-weekly whole team meeting where they all ordered take out and did a general information consolidation. Some weeks it became just an excuse to all sit down and have a meal. Team Arrow didn't generally get much other time for actual team building.

Now they had a comfortably decorated back room of the mayor's office that was plus air conditioning and minus electronic monitoring. Besides, a lot of the time they could make the food they ordered a tax write-off.

Lance had gotten there a little early that week to hand over extra files on the criminals closest. Oliver was in the middle of a conversation with his former step father Walter Steel. Walter was now in control of Oliver's finances and had been re-hired by Felicity as CFO.

"Oliver," Walter said in his warm accent. "This is our new head of climate research Mariana Calvary."

A petite Spanish women stepped forward and smiled at Oliver. The two shook hands and in the next moment Lance felt his jaw hit the floor. Oliver raised his hands and went through a quick flurry of precise hand motions that Lance recognized as sign language. "It's very nice to meet you," Oliver said slowly as he completed the signs.

The small smile Calvary had been wearing before blossomed in to a full blown grin. "I look forward to working with you Mr. Queen," she replied haltingly. The meeting had concluded soon after and Walter had left with Calvary glowing with paternal pride.

Oliver released a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back to relieve tension. Lance stepped forward and handed over the files he had brought. "When the hell did you learn sign language Queen?" he asked.

Oliver turned to face him. "About two weeks ago when I found out I had a meeting with Mariana Calvary," he replied. "Felicity dug in to her background ad found out she had gone deaf when she was six after her school bus crashed in to a semi-truck. When she told me I asked her to find me a sign language class. I've been taking them online. I thought it would be easier to work with her if we could actually communicate. It's going to take a couple more weeks though. The only other words I really know involve pets and the color yellow. So..."

Lance just shook his head and moved into the back room they used for their meetings. Some subjects were better left decisively unexplored.

* * *

When Oliver managed to catch Bronchitis he had been put under strict doctor's orders not to speak unless absolutely necessary. What had followed was a few exceptionally frustrating days of Morse Code, military hand gestures, and furiously scrawled messages on an extra large legal pad.

Lance had been at Arrow Cave 2.0 which Oliver refused to leave even with a high fever. Felicity had managed to get him to lie down on the cot in the back corner by methods involving blackmail, coercion, threats, wheedling, and her loud voice. However, Oliver still refused to sleep.

From Lance's memory Oliver had never been a very cooperative patient. As a little kid he had been the kind of sick patient who refused to take medicine if he thought it tasted bad. Lance also remembered one particular occasion when Oliver had climbed out a window and down the tree outside it to avoid being driven to the doctor to get tested for strep throat. His tonsils had been the approximate size of golf balls before the doctors had managed to get him to sit still long enough to check them.

At the end of the night Felicity had packed up and gone to wake Oliver who had gone in to a kind of stupor somewhere between consciousness and sleep. "Oliver," she said. "Oliver it's time to go home and get you to a real bed. That position can _not _be comfortable for your neck. Or your back. Or really your anything."

Lance saw Oliver focus on her blearily and shake his head. Felicity sighed. "Now is not the time for you to try to be stubborn Oliver. Either you walk out to the car and let me drive you home or I'm going to call Digg and let him carry you. Then I will take a picture and give it to Thea to use as blackmail whenever either one of us feels like it."

Oliver reached out and took her hand. Still shaking his head Oliver pulled her closer to the edge of the cot and made her sit down. Felicity rolled her eyes. "Really? You want to cuddle?"

Lance saw Oliver make a face but then he nodded and Felicity hunkered down next to him, still holding his hand. "Fine. I'll stay."

Lance turned the lights out on his way out the door.

* * *

Oliver Queen tended to do a lot of talking when his hands.

They delivered warning in high stress situations and let him communicate when other people couldn't hear or he couldn't talk. When he used them to fight they delivered threats, blackmail, demands, and other warnings. They tapped out Morse Code and military directives.

When Oliver was nervous, or upset, or hanging on a ledge they said that to. Lance had begun to realize that nowadays that particular tick was Oliver missing the bow string from his hands. The quick rub of his index finger over his thumb was the release pattern of the arrow leaving his bow. Lance was almost glad he hadn't known that initially. If he had known a little bit more about archery he would have arrested Oliver within twenty seconds.

But he also used hands to say much quieter things. Things like _stay, you're safe, I'm here, _and _I love you_.

It was more than Lance had ever been able to say with a flick of his fingers that was for damn sure.

**A/N: So what did you guys think? I think it's not bad. I've got a prompt I'll be working off of for the next chapter so that should be coming up soon. I just wanted this one up here because I felt like it was a good follow up on the last chapter. Review for me! By the way, my FanFic account is doing this weird thing where it doesn't show me how many people have read the story. I know people have because I'm getting reviews but it's still weird. Is anyone else having this problem? If so tell me how to fix it. PLEASE.**

**Review! Review! Review! **

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	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: I own absolutely freaking zilch. In this case, I don't even own the entire idea for this chapter because I was sent a prompt for it. Anyway, people of the CW, please don't sue me. It really wouldn't be worth your time. Person who sent me this prompt, also please don't sue me. Same reason.**

One of Oliver Queen's worse traits was that he had always been relatively horrible at sharing. At face value, it would have been easy for Lance to assume that that was purely a result of being an only child with access to more money than was good for him for nearly a decade. Besides, it wasn't like Tommy Merlyn his best friend didn't have enough of his own stuff.

It was easy to think that he had just never really had to share. Practice made perfect, and in the art of sharing, Oliver Queen had none.

The arrival of Thea had disproved that theory.

When Thea had come in to the world Lance had watched Oliver with some interest to see if it would change the kid's perspective at all. He wasn't sure what exactly he had been expecting. Maybe a sudden flood of willingness to share toys or something? When Sara had been born Laurel had taken a day or two to warm up to her. Then she had started sharing her dolls and orchestrating games to play.

Not so much so with Oliver and Thea. Oliver was nearly an entire decade older than Thea. By the time Thea was big enough to play with toys that didn't come with choke warnings Oliver had been sixteen. Suffice it to say they hadn't really shared interests or items they could play with together.

That wasn't to say that Oliver didn't spend time playing with Thea. Lance had to admit that Queen was really incredibly generous with his time when it came to his little sister. He was never shy about spending time with her or about buying her presents. Sometimes lavish ones in Lance's opinion, but at least it looked like he cared.

Lance had once had to chaperone Sara to the mall and had passed a seventeen year od Oliver standing outside of a store called Justice with a pained look on his face. Lance recognized the look as the same one his face took on whenever he was pulled in to IKEA with Dinah. It was a look that emulated equal parts dread and boredom.

Quentin couldn't stop himself from throwing out one barb. "When did you become a twelve year old girl Queen?"

Oliver looked up from the contemplation he had been conducting of his shoelaces and pulled a face. "Thea's inside," he explained. "Mom was supposed to take her back to school shopping. Apparently second grade is big so..." He trailed off with a shrug.

"If your mom was supposed to take her then what are you doing here?" Lance questioned.

He sighed. "Charity gala. Something about saving... something," he shook his head and Lance tried not to be disturbed by the fact that the kid had absolutely no idea what Charity was actually being celebrated. "Anyway," Queen continued. "She was busy. And I didn't want Thea to cry so," he shrugged. "Now I'm here."

At that moment Thea charged out of the store clutching a bag of clothes that from the one glance Lance got of them seemed to be scarily brightly colored and glittery. "Ollie!" she squealed.

"Hey Speedy," Oliver greeted, catching her bag and all in a big hug. Lance watched as he scooped her up into the air and Thea giggled. His face had transformed completely from bored to grinning. He set her back down but automatically took the bag so she wouldn't have to carry it. "Alright, are we good here?"

"Here yeah," Thea said cheerfully. "But now I'm hungry. Can we get lunch?"

Oliver nodded. "We'll stop at the food court on the way out." He nodded to Quentin as he walked past, leading Thea by the hand. Distantly he heard Oliver ask, "so sandwiches, Chinese, Italian, or Pizza?"

The point being, Oliver never really needed to share toys with Thea, but he was never against spending time with his little sister. Oliver could share, kind of. In fact he was fine at sharing material things and things like his time. As time went on it was proved that he was absolutely shit a sharing people.

If Oliver really, seriously cared about someone then Lance noticed that he tended to keep them close. Those kept close people also tended to be people he took responsibility for. Tommy Merlyn tended to be a little bit the same way. Lance supposed it made a little bit of sense. Both boys had enough money to buy whatever sort of objects they wanted. What they couldn't actually buy was people who cared about them.

At least, Lance hoped to God they weren't allowed to buy people. Being a billionaire was one thing but being able to buy people was still slavery and completely illegal. Arresting family friends also seemed like a pretty sure fire way to make a barbecue awkward. (The fact that Lance did actually arrest Oliver for vigilantism in the future did not actually escape him in the realm of irony.)

* * *

Anyway, Oliver wasn't good about sharing the people he cared about. It was no coincidence that Tommy and Oliver ad been each other's best and only friends. From what Lance saw each of them could have simply walked up to any random person and declared that they wanted to be friends. But neither of them did. Neither of them ever seemed to feel the desire or the inclination to make any other friends.

Dinah once broached the subject with both boys trying not to sound irritated over the fact that the two of them were constantly around. "You're around for dinner again?" she asked. "I would have thought maybe you guys would have a few other places to hang out." Oliver, Tommy, and Laurel had been in the eighth grade at the time. Laurel had dragged them over to work on a project the week before, and since then the boys had been at the Lance's home more than they had been at their own.

Tommy pulled a face around the bite of Pizza he had just taken. "My Dad's security team runs a security check and makes a perimeter or something around houses when I make friends with new people," he said. "With you guys it's just one security named Jared who waits in the car."

"You got your dad down to one guy?" Oliver had asked, sounded vaguely impressed. "My parents still won't let me come over here from school without sending around three guys."

Tommy had frowned. "Who is it this week?"

Lance saw Oliver frown as he tried to remember. "I think it was, Marcus, Jamie, and Lowell. Or maybe Max was there. He and Marcus are twins it gets confusing. Anyway, we really appreciate you letting us come over Mrs. Lance," he said it with wide, impossibly blue eyes. "If you need us to leave we will, it's just that our parents get worried about us making the wrong friends. It makes it easier to just stick with people we trust."

That night had ended with Dinah refusing to let Queen and Merlyn leave without eating two full servings of vegetables.

* * *

Oliver was bad about sharing Thea's care with other people to. He didn't seem to trust anybody else to really do a good enough job mot of the time. The best example Lance could come up with for that had been when Thea had decided she wanted to try ballet when she was seven. Lance had been dropping Sara off at the hip hop class she had decided to try that month.

When Lance had walked passed the main office on the way out of the studio Oliver had barreled through the door. Lance had paused in the hallway across from the office and paused to watch. He had heard the sound of a small child crying on his way in to drop off Sara and felt bad for the kid. Now it turned out the kid he had felt bad for was Thea Queen.

Thea was sitting on a chair in the office curled up in a little ball. Lance saw Oliver squat down next to the chair and fix the instructor with a glare. He reached out and wrap an arm around Thea's shoulders "What happened?"

"She- she," the instructor spluttered. The young women seemed to shrink back from Oliver's glare. That may have actually been the first time that Quentin Lance actually forced himself to acknowledge the fact that Oliver Queen could be scary. In fact, he could be scary as hell. "She tripped and fell," she finally finished. "We tried to call your parents but we couldn't find the file and the only number she would give us was yours."

"I wanted Ollie," Thea said around her tears.

Lance saw Oliver scoot closer to Thea, pulling a tissue out of a box on the cluttered desk and handing it to her. "Tell me what happened Speedy. Are you okay?"

"I slipped and my foot twisted," Thea explained. Her tears seemed to be clearing up rapidly now that Oliver was there. "Then I kind of fell on top of it."

Lance saw Oliver frown. "Which foot? Can you walk on it?"

Thea sniffed and stretched out her left ankle. Lance couldn't help but wince for the little girl. Her foot looked like a large blue dinosaur had laid an egg on her foot. It was puffy and swollen looking as well. "Not really," she answered.

Oliver examined the bruise and then scooped Thea up off the ground. "Okay. We're going to go by the hospital and have Dr. Lamb x-ray that foot. He'll check on it and maybe get you some crutches and then we'll go home. Raisa will make you some of those Russian cookies that you like and you can pick a movie to watch, okay?"

The instructor took a step forward. "Can you tell us your parents number so we can tell them what happened. That's what our policy-"

"_I _will be the one to call my parents and tell them about this," Oliver said, renewing his glare. "Until then how about you try to figure out a good reason for not even getting my little sister an ice pack." Then he had stormed out and paused in front of Lance. "Detective Lance, because you are an office of the law I just really want to clarify that I will definitely be waiting until I get home to make that phone call."

Lance gave him an approving nod. "Good call kid. If you ever talk on the phone while driving any of my daughters or your little sister I will personally break your thumbs." He glanced down at Thea's tear stained face. "Feel better Kiddo."

That particular incident had resulted in the Lances finding a new place for Sara to take her dance class. Also, as it had turned out Thea had sprained her ankle and been on crutches for two weeks. During that time Lance had seen Oliver be a more attentive older brother and all around better person than he had been showing himself to be lately. When Oliver and Laurel had been trying to date, again, for the fifth time, Lance just tried to hold on to the memory of Oliver mass producing ice in the refrigerator and watching YouTube videos about the right way to wrap an Ace bandage.

* * *

Basically, when people Oliver cared about were hurt or needed help he demanded to do it himself and wouldn't let anyone else get close. On the other hand, when he decided to care he really went all out. One of the only reassuring things Lance could find in Oliver and his daughter dating was that Laurel would at least be safe when they went out together. At least, she would be safe from everyone else.

From everything Lance had ever seen from Oliver he didn't ever share the people he cared about. When Laurel went out on a date with Oliver Lance could rest assured that she wouldn't have any kind of issue with some other guy. If someone came close then occasionally bad things tended to happen.

One time Lance had come in from a late night working to find Oliver and Laurel sitting on the couch in the living room while Oliver iced his hand. Lance caught site of the dish towel wrapped around the ice and sighed. "Do I even want to know?" he asked exhaustedly.

Oliver rolled his head to rest on the back of the couch to look back at him. "I kind of gut punched a guy at the carnival we went to," he said, not even having the decency to look a little bit guilty about it. "On the bright side I kicked ass at that arcade game we played. You know that one with the darts you throw to try to pop balloons? I got the high score of the night," he turned to grin at Laurel. "Apparently my aim is awesome."

Lance sighed. He guessed that explained why there was a gigantic plush elephant taking up an entire corner of the room. "No offense Kid," he said to Oliver. "But Laurel why the hell do you keep on dating this moron who can't seem to keep himself from getting arrested for drunken disorderliness and violent behavior? I mean seriously. I'm trying to be nice about this and I really don't want to have to arrest your boyfriend but you're not making this easy on me Sweetie!"

"Daddy!" Laurel protested. "What Ollie did was actually _so _sweet."

Lance couldn't help but roll his eyes. At that point he highly doubted that anything that had resulted in Oliver punching a guy had involved something sweet. "For the record," Oliver said from the sofa. "I'm completely sober. Also, I decided that punching a creepy guy who was trying to feel Laurel up in line would have been worth the payoff my parents would have done to keep me out of jail."

Lance paused and looked to Laurel who nodded in confirmation with a look of remembered disgust. Then Laurel looked back to Oliver. "How creepy are we talking about here?"

"Tattoos, piercings, and a blue dyed foehawk, with the beginnings of a beard worthy of a ZZ top member," Laurel described. "He looked like someone from one of your arrest books. On of the drug dealer ones."

Quentin flipped his focus back and forth between his daughter and her boyfriend. "Could either of you ID him off of a security cam?" The two looked at each other and nodded and Lance side. "Queen," he barked. "How did you punch him?"

"Double shot somewhere near the solar-plexus," he answered.

Lance considered. "Did he drop?"

"Like a brick."

"Problems with security?"

"Not a one," Laurel assured.

"Did you tuck your thumb?" Lance checked with Oliver.

Oliver shook his head, trying to bight back a small grin. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Lance took a moment to think it over and began to walk out of the living room towards the hallway. "I can live with it."

* * *

This past experience was what had Lance's ears pricking up when Felicity Smoak first met Barry Allen. As soon as the Allen Kid had started talking Lance had seen Oliver's jaw tighten. Something in his expression, or maybe his body language had just become more alert. "Who are you?" Lance had asked. It had seemed prudent as an officer of the law to check who was at his crime scene.

"And do your parents know that you're here?" Oliver had checked with a heavy edge of mocking in his voice.

Lance had to work hard to keep himself from smirking as he walked away from the scene. He knew Oliver Queen, and the man was now exhibiting all of the typical signs of jealousy. An emotion he was pretty sure Queen had had little occasion to experience lately. For one thing he didn't think there had been many people to be jealous over on the island. (Future him of course learned that that wasn't necessarily true). Also, Oliver had seemed bizarrely calm about Laurel dating Tommy.

Oliver Queen was jealous over the fact that Felicity was making friends with Barry Allen. Lance wasn't really around to see how that played out but he had to assume it hadn't really gone anywhere. He hadn't seen Barry again until he had visited Detective West in Central City to help investigate a case. His coffee had floated and it had been incredibly bizarre.

Ray Palmer had been a whole spate ordeal. Then everyone else had had to watch Oliver watch Ray and Felicity have an actual responsible and functioning relationship. Roy told Lance later that Oliver had snapped the night he had seen Felicity kiss Ray and nearly flipped an entire table's worth of research equipment. Basically, Oliver had an issue with sharing the people he cared about. And Lance could see that he cared about Felicity a whole lot more than he was willing to admit.

He had actually gotten to see Oliver explode over jealousy about Felicity only once, and it was over a guy named Michael Holt who had just started working as the head of Applied Sciences.

The two of them had come in to the Arrow Cave 2.0 arguing. This wasn't so completely out of the realm of normality. They were the kind of couple that bickered often. Either until Oliver did something pig headed in spite of Felicity's point or simply gave up and admitted that she was right.

"I just don't like that the guy calls himself Mr. Terrific," Oliver was griping. "What is the point of that anyway?"

"Uhg!" Felicity shouted in frustration. "That's not your problem and you know it! Every time I work with someone new you start background checking them and glaring at them! You just don't like the fact that I'm working with someone nice. Newsflash Oliver, I will be working with other people! It's a really freaking big company. You should know that, _your _family designed the building."

Lance saw Oliver grind his teeth together with enough force to make him genuinely concerned that Queen's jaw was going to snap in half. "That's not it," he bit out. "I just don't like him okay?"

Felicity rubbed a tired hand over her eyes. "Oliver! You are wearing the same expression as that time when you broke a training dummy in half when I mentioned that Barry went out and got me Susi! It's not like you ever had a problem with anyone else on the team getting food for me."

"Mr. Terrific," Oliver spat. "Is not on this team. And I don't think I have to be okay with the fact that other guys are bringing my girlfriend dinner. _I _can bring you dinner. It's not like spending time together to eat dinner would be a bad thing."

Lance saw Felicity jab a finger into Oliver's chest. "You can just freaking get over someone else bringing me dinner when we can hardly go anywhere in this city without running into someone that you've slept with! Isabel Rochev Oliver! She turned out to be a super villain. Whom I hated before hand by the way!"

That was the moment that Lance felt the need to look away as Oliver stopped the rest of Felicity's tirade by kissing her. There were some things that Lance just didn't need to see. One of those things being the person he thought of as an honorary daughter making out with a kid he'd known since childhood.

"None of those people mattered because I have been in love with you since the moment I met you and to me the people before that aren't important right now," Oliver said it with a bit more anger than Lance thought that statement typically deserved. He also tried to ignore the fact that two of those girls were his daughters. Again, some things were better left uncontemplated. Like the sound of continued making out that followed he, Diggle, and Thea back out of the lair.

"Is it worth it to go back and mention that the guy they're arguing about is actually way more likely to be in to Oliver than he would be Felicity?" Thea asked as they shut the door firmly behind them.

Diggle raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you really want to go back in there?"

"Hell no!" Thea said adamantly. "I have money on kids in two years."

Lance frowned. "You have a bet going on this?"

"Captain Lance," Diggle said with a small smile and a shake of the head. "There has been a bet going on this since Oliver tried to spin some line about not having enough sports bottles. I jacked the stakes up the first time when she signed on and Oliver said he was going to protect her. When my sister in law moved away Roy joined in."

Lance sighed, but chipped in forty bucks to the pool with some pretty reasonable odds. After all, if their was one thing to get those two moving forward it was the fact that Oliver had always been a possessive, protective, and over all horrible at sharing the people he loved.

**A/N: So what did you guys think? I wasn't completely sure how it went but I gave it a good shot. I think Oliver being overly jealous about everything doesn't necessarily fit with the kind of character the show had established, but I trade to make it fit with my writing style. Tell me how I did! I might not be able to update for a little while because I start school on Tuesday and I spend 14 hours a day there six days a week (it's a British prep school system being used in America. Try not to question it). Either way, I won't have a lot of time for a while.**

**This prompt came from Starlight Angel 12 so I hope I did them justice and filled out what they wanted from it. I still have another prompt to work on when I've got time. So stick with me.**

**Review for me! xxoxooxoxoxoxooxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxxoxoxooxxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxxo**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: Okay, so if you haven't read this part of the story in the last eighteen or so chapters then I highly doubt that you'll be changing your patterns now. 'Cause you see, I normally like math and statistics and those kinds of things and probability suggests that you won't be changing your mind the nineteenth time if the last eighteen didn't do it. When you think about it, it just kind of makes sense. My point is, if you really feel the need to read a disclaimer for this story go back to one of the last eighteen freaking chapters! **

**Okay, the rant is now over. Read on!**

Having watched Oliver Queen grow up and go through a veritable evolution of communication skills, Quentin Lance had to admit that he was extremely good with kids. He didn't shower that compliment lightly. In fact, for a reasonably large portion of Oliver and Laurel's dating life Lance was cursing that particular skill set of Queen's from the tip of Everest to the lowest circles of firey hell.

It wasn't because being good with little kids was a bad thing. As a civil servant Lance was essentially required to love small children and graciously accept their clumsily drawn and badly spelled letters written as third grade English assignments thanking him generally for his service protecting their city. He loved comfortable relations with kids. Three cheers for that!

The thing he wasn't so much a fan of was the expression Laurel got on her face every time she witnessed Oliver with little kids. It wasn't the reassuringly level headed look that normally characterized the face of his eldest daughter. It was an expression that was completely and totally unreassuringly warm mushiness combined with a sort of aspirational determination.

Lance could remember the first time he had ever seen that expression. They had all been at the park where Oliver was teaching a six year old Thea to ride her bike without training wheels. Thea had skidded to a stop in front of tree stump and fallen to the ground, her face screwing up as she tried bravely not to cry.

Oliver had shot a semi-panicked look at Laurel who had merely smiled encouragingly and extracted a small box of band aides from her school bag. Essentially every member of the Lance family happened to carry band aides. Between Sara's slightly careless and clumsy nature, Lance's high stress job, and Laurel and Dinah's hereditary propensity for paper cuts first aid supplies were a must.

Quentin had seen Oliver's small grateful smile as he took the box and ducked away to tend to Thea. He had been a perfect older brother. With discreet efficiency he had cleaned and patched over the scrapes on her hands and knees and helped her back up to her feet. "Are you sure?" Lance heard him ask Thea as he extracted the bike from the bush it had ended up in.

He had shrugged and handed the bike back to her with a seemingly untroubled expression. "Okay then Speedy. It's up to you. But how about you stick with the flat part of the park for a little while okay?"

Thea nodded and teeteringly got back on the bike and wobbled away down a flatter path. Oliver watched her move away with the sort of worried expression only older brothers ever really pulled off. It was the look that fell between fatherly worry and the kind of charitable bemusement of a best friend.

It wasn't his look that Lance was concerned with though. That look actually gave him hope that underneath everything that Oliver was beginning to show as an outer persona was still the normal, kind little boy that Lance had liked so much. The look that bothered him was Laurel's. It was his daughter's 'planning a future look', and even then Lance just couldn't see it.

That wasn't even just as a father disapproving of his daughter's boyfriend. It was the fact that as someone who had lived forty years could see when two people just weren't going to make it in the long run. As a father, he didn't want his daughter to build all of her hopes and dreams for the future around one erratic individual.

Those were the times that Lance absolutely hated the fact that Oliver Queen was somehow incredibly good with kids. That one single look on Laurel's face. It popped up at different times. When Oliver stopped to listen to a street kid playing the violin and paid him afterwards, or when he helped Thea swing across puddles on rainy days.

It didn't seem to be something he could help either. It was just something that seemed to be an inlaid part of Oliver Queen, like blue eyes or blonde hair. Hell if Lance knew where that particular gene came from though. It was something un-chartable like the apparent charm and broad smiles that Queen seemed to be able to produce on command. He was just plain good with kids.

* * *

Apparently not even the island was something that could change that which was something that Lance hadn't learned until a woman named Tatsu had come to visit to deliver a warning about stirrings within the League. Apparently Nyssa had been unable to come herself because she had wanted to avoid giving Malcolm Merlyn any time to find a weakness in her place in the hierarchy. She was trying to maintain control which Oliver supported quietly from a distance.

Tatsu had appeared like a shadow in the apartment Oliver shared with Felicity. Lance had been there in order to supervise Oliver in his attempts at cooking a dinner for his girlfriend. Oliver had insisted that during their five month foray out of Starling City he had actually become a highly proficient cook, but the image of a little boy covered in flour trying to waft smoke out the window as the fire alarm caused the sprinkles to go off in the Lance apartment. With that in mind, there was no way Lance was letting Queen cook alone.

"You are cooking," the women said in only slightly broken English accent with a light Japanese lilt. Quick brown eyes had flicked to the vase of flowers on the table and back to where Oliver was standing chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter. "And for a women. If this is not a sign that people can change then I do not know what is."

"Tatsu," Oliver greeted. Lance noted with a cold chill that his grip on the kitchen knife had changed, and not to one that was more deadly. Instead it had shifted back to the hold a typical person kept on a normal kitchen knife. The shift from average to deadly and back again had come ad gone in the same amount of time it had taken for Lance to notice that there was someone else in the room.

Oliver let the knife drop back to the cutting board and wiped his palms on the back of his pants before he went to greet the women with a warm hand shake. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon. How are things?"

"Their may be trouble with Malcolm Merlyn soon," she reported calmly. "Your friend Nyssa Al Ghul wished to come herself but was wary of arousing his suspicions. She sent me instead to warn you."

Lance could see a slight flicker behind Oliver's eyes but it was gone in a moment. It hadn't been fear or apprehension, but something far more terrifying. It had been a cold and resolute fury. "What is it?" he questioned. "Our deal only went through with the understanding that if he became my enemy again I would kill him without hesitation."

Tatsu waved a dismissive hand. "Kare wa kibun ga kare o yorokoba seru toki utsu kusa taiki-chū no hebi no yōna monodesu," she said in fluent Japanese. "He doesn't seem to be planning anything at all. That is what disturbs Nyssa. For Al-Saher to be planning nothing makes her feel uneasy. It seemed that you should know."

Oliver dipped his head in a gesture of gracious respect that startled Lance. He wasn't sure he had ever seen Oliver do something like that. "I'm very grateful that you traveled all this way to deliver your message," even his town had shifted to something more formal and respectful. He gestured to the open living room. "Please make yourself comfortable." He held up a hand to stop her upcoming protests. "It is the least I can do to repay the hospitality you showed me six years ago."

Tatsu still shook her head and looked down at the table and the food simmering on the stove. "I would not wish to disrupt your dinner," she looked back to him. "Especially given that you already have a chaperone for your cooking."

Queen rolled his eyes and sighed. "I guess I'll just have to call you when I'm doing my laundry." He said the words like they were a well remembered joke.

The women seemed to take the words in her stride. "No billionaire Oliver Queen. When you decided to do your laundry you will have to call a chef who is skilled in the art of cooking pork dumplings because that will surely be the day that pigs begin to fly." Tatsu's eyes seemed to catch on a small steal jar on the mantle and she threw up a hand over her mouth. "Akio," she gasped

Lance watched Oliver as Oliver watched Tatsu with interest. She didn't know what was causing such a reaction but he was perfectly willing to find out. "You keep him here in your home," she asked. Her eyes seemed almost to be welling with tears.

Oliver took a deep breath before he spoke again. "Kare wa kazokudeshita," he said in Japanese more fluent than Lance had expected. He didn't really know why the fact that Oliver Queen could speak another language besides the ones he already knew about was at all surprising anymore. "I treat him with the honor that that deserves."

Tatsu nodded. "Thank you," she said. With a final glance around the brightly colored and softly lit apartment. "I am glad that you are happy Oliver Queen," she said, and before Lance could blink twice she was gone.

Oliver turned back to the vegetables on the cutting board and again took up the knife to continue chopping. Lance watched him and waited for an explanation. When one didn't seem like it would be forth coming he decided to push a little. "So what did she say? And while I'm asking questions I don't think you'll answer how about I ask who Akio is and what he has to do with the canister on your mantle piece?"

"Akio was her son," Oliver said simply after another long moment. "He was killed by a lethal virus designed by a government agency six years ago in Hong Kong." He threw the vegetables in to the pot on the stove and began to manipulate it's contents with a wooden spoon. For another long moment the only sounds in the room were the ticking of the kitchen clock and the simmering of the stove. "I hadn't seen Thea in nearly four years then," he said with a gesture almost like a shrug. "Akio was ten."

Oh. Lance supposed that that explained pretty much everything. Suddenly he could picture Oliver with an untidy beard and a long mop of blonde hair playing matching games with a little Japanese boy sitting on a kitchen floor. Another flash came of Oliver sneaking that same imaginary little boy pieces of candy out of a high cabinet.

Because Oliver Queen was good with children.

* * *

When Oliver Queen had been a teenager Quentin Lance had lived in mortal fear of the day when that kid finally had _kids. _He could hardly handle one young Queen male. The _entire world _could hardly handle one young male Queen. The last thing it ever needed was two.

In fact, Lance had gotten it firmly in to his mind that the perfect Karmic and universal revenge for everything that Oliver Queen had ever done to girls was for him to produce daughters. Lots of pretty daughters who would share the same reckless dating policy that Oliver had had as a teenager. Yeah, that would be universal justice for all of the grey hairs on Quentin's own scalp.

But of course, because this was Oliver Queen they were talking about, the guy had had a son. And also, of fucking course, the two had met under less than ideal circumstances. In fact, people had been trying to kill them, and Connor's mom had just been killed.

A contingency of Connor Hawke's fifth grade class had been on a fieldtrip to see the museums and government buildings of Starling City with a few parents to chaperone. Unfortunately for the eighteen fifth graders chosen to participate in the trip, that tour had included a trip to the Starling City Mayor's office. Even more tragically for Connor Hawke, he and a little girl named Maya Heart had been the only two children who had needed to use the bathroom and hadn't managed to leave before the armed gunmen had entered. Sandra Hawke had escorted them.

Lance and the other members of the SCPD had been called in to clear the gunmen out of the building. Hopefully with minimal bloodshed involved. However, they had been too late to do much about it either way. John Diggle and Oliver Queen had apparently come to the mutual consensus that while secrecy was important, the lives of multiple innocent people had outweighed it.

The two of them had hidden Connor and Maya in a supply closet and proceeded to fight their way through all six of the hostile attackers. Then they had looped back and retrieved the kids. They had run into one last hostile who had held a gun on the two eleven year olds and Sandra. By the time that they had arrived both children were in shock and crying as Sandra lay on the ground in a pool of blood. Oliver hadn't even taken the time to think it through. He had performed something that looked a little similar to a tracheotomy only more lethal using a mechanical pencil.

Then he had ushered the two terrified and shocked children out of the building, his protective instincts in full force as he kept the kids close. By the time they had made it to the flocking paramedics waiting to check them over, Maya was riding piggy back on Oliver balling in to his shoulder while Connor stayed shocked and silent as Oliver bent over nearly double to guide him with an arm around his shoulders. Of course the police report said something a little bit different. Lance had only heard this version a little bit later.

Maya had been delivered in to the waiting arms of her parents who had thanked Diggle profusely. The bodyguard had been given most of the credit for the save and the mayor's security team had taken the rest. The news was already scraping together a story of the tragedy as they went to the ambulance. Sandra Hawke had been boiled down to nothing but a beautiful single mother who had worked hard to raise her son, and been killed in a horrible gun attack protecting two kids.

Connor however, had latched on to Oliver's hand and refused to let go. He had stayed silent and white faced the entire time. Oliver had obliged him without a single word of protest and boosted the little boy onto the gurney provided by the EMT. Lance had decided to hover relatively nearby until everyone he cared for had cleared the scene. That was how he had heard their conversation.

"Will you stay?" he had heard the little boy asked plaintively. His voice had been shaky and hollow "Please?" Connor swung his feet in the air and loosened his grip on Oliver's hand a little bit. "Please stay?"

Suddenly the little boy sitting on the gurney under flashing blue and red lights was replaced with a different one. Connor became another little boy sitting in his school nurse's office having his knees swabbed down with alcohol holding tightly to Lance's hand asking _will you stay? _with the same plaintive expression. Connor's huge blue eyes and dirty blonde curls formed the same cherubic innocence and fright that was impossible to turn down.

Oliver reached to the side and Lance saw his face fall for a moment before Oliver came back and wrapped a thick grey shock blanket around Connor's small form. "As long as you need," he promised. He said it with all of the serious conviction of someone making an oath. There was a long moment of relative silence before he leaned forward towards Connor. "Connor," he said softly. "Is there someone you want me to call for you?" Connor seemed almost like he hadn't heard her. "Do you have anyone to take care of you?" he continued gently. More gently than Lance had ever heard him.

Connor shook his head twice, and a few tears rolled down his nose. He rubbed them away and sniffed angrily. Oliver heaved a deep breath and reached out to pull Connor in to his chest. "Okay," he said quietly. "That's okay. We'll figure it out."

That was the moment that Felicity had arrived on the scene. She had looked around the emergency scene with a frantic edge and run in to Diggle. The bodyguard had pointed her in the right direction. Felicity had taken one look at the crying boy and caught Oliver's slightly panicked but equally determined expression and Lance had seen her expression calm and soften.

She walked over and brushed a hand over Oliver's back. She had stood there quietly until Connor's crying had slowed a little. His small shoulders had slumped and Oliver had a feeling he cried himself in to exhaustion "Oliver," she said. "The police and the paramedics need to know whose taking him home. They have papers that need to be signed."

Oliver looked up at her and then down at the boy who had been crying in to his chest until moments ago. "His mom just died," he said quietly as Connor nestled a little farther in to him.

Felicity sighed and reached out. She ran two fingers over the thick mess of curly blonde hair on Connor's head. "We're taking him home for now aren't we?" Oliver's jaw tightened a little ways and Felicity sat on the gurney next to Connor. "Go do the paperwork and make the phone calls. I'll sit with him until you get back." Connor leaned sideways into her blue coat and Felicity continued brushing through his hair.

Oliver nodded and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead before walking away to make calls to set things up for Connor at his apartment. He talked to the paramedics and then turned to Lance. "I'll take care of it," Quentin promised.

Queen relaxed a little. "Will you call Laurel to? I have a feeling we might need her for a while."

"I'll take care of it," he repeated. "Now go tell the kid he's got people to go home with so he doesn't wake up somewhere and think he's being kidnapped or something. I'm not sure I have it in me to handle having a traumatized kid call 911 tonight."

Oliver nodded and walked back to where Connor now lay passed out in Felicity's lap. He watched as the two of them woke the little boy up and broke the news as Diggle pulled the car around.

That was how Oliver Queen got his first introduction to his son. Neither of them new it until months later when social services had been unable to track down Connor's relatives. As Lance understood it, Oliver and Felicity had decided to adopt him. When they had checked Oliver's blood work it had been discovered by some brilliant lab tech that the papers really weren't so necessary. As Laurel proved in court you didn't really have to sign adoption papers if you were biologically the child in questions father.

It had been a bumpy road to break that one to all parties involved. But they had figured it out. Felicity managed as best she could to take care of Connor while not trying to replace his actual mom. In fact, the first time Connor had ever called her mom she had been reminding him to do his homework and he had made the comment offhandedly. She and Oliver had gone through their two year wedding anniversary and Connor had been living with them for a year and a half. Felicity had freaked out and started crying and a concerned Connor had called Oliver. Lance had heard that he had essentially said. "Dad, Mom is crying and I don't know what to do about it."

Lance had been next to Oliver to hear him say. "It's okay Con. Bring her her tablet and tell her the updates she wanted to install are ready to go. Do your homework and I'll explain what happened when I get home."

As he hung up Oliver had looked at him with a kind of slightly tired concern. "Detective, you're looking at me funny."

"You're doing okay at the whole dad thing is all," Lance told him. "You know. I might not ever say this again, and if I'm ever put on trial over it I will probably perjure myself. But you're doing okay as a dad Kid."

Then Oliver had surprised him and smiled. "Let's hope."

That comment had made sense about a month later. Felicity had had what Lance could only guess had been a rough day at work. She had showed up looking pale munching on saltines and sipping from a cup of tea. Oliver had provided constant refills of both things throughout the day.

At the end of it, he had come back from his patrol with a huge bouquet of flowers and a large container of sour gummy worms. Lance had been cleaning up his supplies from the foundry and everyone else had already left. "I thought they might make you smile," he said as he proffered both items.

Felicity had smiled, smiled like the sun was coming out and happily ate a gummy worm. Oliver watched her warily, as though he was waiting for something. "Are you good? I wasn't sure what would work. I didn't want you to throw up again since it makes you so miserable..."

"I'm good," Felicity told him cheerily. "Only threw up once this morning. Nothing since then. I think it's going away."

Lance saw Oliver let out a deep breath. "Oh thank God," he leaned over and kissed her for a long moment and Lance looked away. When he looed back again Oliver was crouching down on a level with Felicity's stomach. "See _dusha? _When you let you're _mama _actually eat she smiles again. And we like it when she smiles okay? So let's stick with it." Then Oliver stood up and wrapped an arm around Felicity's waist. "What do you want for dinner. I'll make whatever you want."

"Stir fry sounds pretty good," Felicity mused.

Oliver leaned to the side and kissed her on her forehead. "Done."

They had announced it officially a month later. But Lance had been the one to guess first that soon another mini member of the team would be joining up. Every member of the team had pulled together to protect her. Oliver had gone half way insane baby proofing their apartment. Connor had actually been the one to talk him down by getting him to go out to a basketball game with Diggle. Diggle himself had switched to a car with more airbags. Laurel and Thea had worked together to set Felicity up with every single baby book and craving food they could come up with as well as some non-alcoholic beverages.

One week earlier than expected Adrianna Meghan Dearden Queen came in to the world. Lance had rounded the corner in to Felicity's recovery room and found Connor curled up on a chair in the corner as Felicity slept. Oliver held the baby already nicknamed Addie cradled like a tiny pink and white blanket bundle in his arms.

"_Hush little baby don't say a word._

_Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird._

_And if that mockingbird don't sing,_

_Papa's gonna buy you a diamond ring._

_And if that diamond ring don't shine,_

_Papa's gonna sing you a lullaby."_

He sang the song all the way through and then adjusted Addy gingerly. "And I'll do all of those things baby girl," he said. "I'll keep you safe. And I promise I'm going to love you, your mom, and your older brother forever." He took a deep breath and placed a tiny kiss on Addie's hat covered forehead. "I promise."

Lance slowly and quietly backed away down the hallway. Yeah, Oliver Queen was going to be okay as a dad. He had always been good with little kids.

At least, pre K-5th graders. Connor was still growing as a test sample.

The newly minted Queen family were all going to be okay.

**A/N: So what did you guys think. Sorry that that took so long to get this chapter up. It'll probably going to be a while until the next one. I'm in school and doing tons of homework. Anyway, this was in part a hope that one day Oliver will be happy with a family, part avoidance of potential baby mama drama, and partly a reaction to Stephen Amell saying in an interview that being a father agreed with him and essentially made him hotter by the day. Hot guys and little babies am I right? Review for me! xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoo**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: Um, so... have you seen anything that I've been writing on TV on Wednesdays? Because I haven't. And if there is something I've written on TV after the point at which I wrote it that you don't already recognize from the show then I think I would probably be paid for it. Or maybe not. I don't really know how the people at the CW or DC Comics work. Maybe they'd ask me. Whatever. Arrow doesn't belong to me. That's the point of this part isn't it?**

Quentin Lance knew something about Oliver Queen that few people have guessed at, few people know, and even fewer people give the credit it's due. It's something he'd always know too. Or at least nearly always. He'd known it since nearly the first day he'd ever met Oliver Queen. And what he had known was that Oliver Queen was a fighter.

The first time he had ever learned that it had been during Laurel's second week of first grade. He had come by after his shift to pick her up and found that all of the kids had been let out on to the playground after classes. He had sighed as he had begun to scour the mass of running kids for the one that was genetically half his.

Eventually he had found Laurel standing just under the shadow of a yellow twisty slide, and the sight made his blood run cold before that coldness was replaced with hot fury. Not because she was standing by the slide, but because a third grade boy was standing in front of her holding up a soccer ball over Laurel's head. His daughter was crying and her long brown curls were tangled and pasted across her eyes.

Lance had just started forward when a blur of yellow hair, red backpack, and blue tee shirt shot under one of the supporting beams of the play structure and came to a halt between Laurel and the third grader. The blur then resolved itself in to a little boy with a head of floppy blonde hair, and large blue eyes. He was wearing a pair of soccer cleats and his eyes were narrowed at the larger boy.

"Give the ball back!" the little boy demanded. "She had it first!"

The taller boy jeered at him. "What are you going to do about it if I don't Queen?" he mocked. "Last time I looked it seemed like I was bigger than you and little princess combined." Lance was about to interfere but once again the little boy beat him to it.

"That doesn't mean you can take the ball," he had argued with a belligerence Lance had rarely ever seen in a first grader. This wasn't a normal little boy interfering with a bullying case. This was a boy who wanted something, and was used to being able to demanding what he wanted. "You made her cry."

The older boy stretched his arms up a little higher, holding the soccer ball even father above Laurel's head. "Well that's her fault. If she can reach the ball she can have it back."

The little blonde boy furrowed his brow and then gave what Lance could only describe as a devil grin. "Okay," he said. Then he promptly stepped forward and kicked the older boy in the shin with his still cleated foot as hard as he could. The boy promptly dropped the soccer ball as he reached down to hold his still sure to be throbbing shin. The little boy picked up the ball and held it out to Laurel. "Can you reach now?"

Laurel looked at the little boy with shining eyes and reached out tremulously to take the ball. "I'm Oliver," the blonde boy introduced himself. "Who are you?"

"Laurel," Lance heard his daughter say quietly.

The boy, newly named Oliver grinned at her and then took Laurel's hand and tugged her out and around the older boy who was still hoping on one leg. "My dad owns a company," he spluttered. "He donates money here. I can have you both thrown out."

"My parents have a company to Max," Oliver told him, sounding not at all scared by the threat. "And QC is _way _bigger than Fuller Corp."

That was when Laurel noticed him and ran over to give him a hug. "Hey honey," Lace greeted, ducking down to catch her in a hug. "Are you ready to go home now?"

Laurel looked up at him, then at Oliver, and then at the ball she had dropped on the ground. "Can I stay and play?" she asked, looking up at him with the huge brown eyes that Quentin knew he would probably never be able to say no to as long as he lived. "Please?" she asked.

That was the final straw, the moment that Lance caved. "Okay princess," he agreed. "No more than fifteen minutes though okay? Mommy's waiting for us at home." When Laurel nodded enthusiastically Lance said, "Okay deal. Want to introduce me to your friend?"

"I'm Oliver," Oliver piped up.

Lance took a breath and nodded to him. "Okay." Then he looked back down to Laurel. "You be careful okay? No more picking fights with fourth graders." With that Laurel nodded again and took off.

As they moved away Lance heard Oliver ask if Laurel wanted to come play soccer with him and his friend Tommy. A man with light sandy hair and the same blue eyes as Oliver stepped up beside him. "You have a wonderful daughter," the man informed him.

Lance glanced at the man and assessed his shining shoes, well cut suit, and expensive wool coat. There was a brief-case tucked under his arm and a tall, overly muscled man stood a few yards away watching the parking lot. More than that, Lance recognized the man's face from the cover of the recent local newspapers. Robert Queen, CEO of mutli-billion dollar company Queen Consolidated was standing next to him in an elementary school playground.

Trying hard to ignore how surreal the moment felt, Lance nodded. "Thank you. I'm proud of her. She's six but I swear to God she's gonna end up smarter than me. Takes more after her mother I think."

Robert Queen smiled and nodded. "I get it," he agreed. "My boy's turning seven in May and when his mother thinks he's like me," he shrugged. "Maybe in looks but when he wants something he just narrows his eyes and sets his chin. And then he gets this look on his face and it's just all Moira."

"That him?" Lance asked pointing to Oliver's blonde head as he tugged Laurel across the throng of children to a little boy with dark curly hair wearing similar soccer gear to Oliver.

"Yeah," Robert had responded with the kind of proud smile that only a father could ever manage for their children. "My boy Oliver. He's scrappy now but I just get this feeling he's going to do something bigger than I ever have. Maybe every parent feels like that, I don' know. But I just _know _he's going to change this city." Robert gave a decisive nod. "Maybe your girl will help him huh?"

Then Robert caught sight of a pale man with a sweep of black hair, a pale face, and dark eyes stepping out of a town car and waving. "Well that's me then," he said. "The only way I can ever justify these trips out of the office to pick Oliver up from school is if the board thinks I'm getting something done. Weekly meetings with the CEO of Merlyn Global seems to do it." He held out his hand to Quentin. "Robert Queen."

Lance took the proffered hand. "Quentin Lance."

"Good to meet you."

Robert began to walk away and lance couldn't help but call after him, "You might want to tell your son that if he ever wants to change the world someday he might want to stop fighting with kids three years older than him."

Mr. Queen stopped and considered for a moment. "Nah," he finally decided. Then with a smile he said, "after all. His mother's a fighter."

* * *

And Oliver was indeed a fighter. He might have been a fairly crappy teenager by, well, any moral, legal, or ethical standard, but he damn well proved to be a fighter. Sometimes he lost, but he did fight.

Lance for one had had multiple opportunities to get up close and personal with the results of that particular facet of Oliver Queen's nature. When the son of a billionaire got in to a bar fight either as an underage or excessive drinker it turned out that people tended to call a few sources. One of them was TMZ (any other gossip show or site was interchangeable with that one), and the other was the police. Normally calling the police came something like ten to twenty minutes after they had called the gossip sites.

Really Lance would have preferred to be on that particular law keeping front a little less often than he was. There were really only so many times that a father could arrest their eldest daughter's on again off again boyfriend without being seen as, at the best, meddling. However, lance didn't get to pick which calls his superiors had him respond to.

That didn't mean that Lance wasn't under the impression that some manipulator god of the universe was doing this to him on purpose to screw with him.

Long story short, Quentin Lance saw Oliver Queen throw more than one seriously decent punch in a bar or club fight during his pre-island years. There had also been that rather unfortunate on camera altercation that featured one angry and drunk Oliver Queen, and a few overly pushy members of paparazzi. Literally everybody with TV or computer aspect and some free time had managed to see that testament.

Bar or playground, Lance knew that even pre-island, Oliver Queen was stubborn as hell, brash, reckless, often overly confident, and unconcerned with his own safety. But a fighter none the less.

* * *

When Oliver Queen had gotten back from Lian Yu Lance had gotten to watch him fight without ever knowing that that was who he was watching. He hadn't been watching Oliver, the kid who used to kick fourth graders in the shin for Lance's daughter. Instead he was watching the Hood, and the hood was a ruthless killer that had absolutely no limit on what he would or wouldn't do to accomplish his goals.

The Hood fought like a tidal wave. More than that, he fought like the forty day flood that according to the bible (a book Lance didn't set store by but knew had some great stories to use for making illustrative points) had driven two of every living thing on board to escape the water. The Hood fought as a driving, never ceasing, drowning force that would drown everything in it's path.

When Lance watched Oliver Queen fight as the Hood without knowing that he was watching Oliver Queen, he had gotten the impression that The Hood was lethal. That lethal nature was only increased by the fact that he was unpredictable. His MO even changed, staying mostly with the bow but sometimes branching to guns, knives, or handy blunt instruments. His victim pool was mostly one percenters but sometimes that spread to thieves, assassins, and bank robbers. Either way, the hood was merciless, brutal, and effective.

The Arrow's fighting was different. It was more controlled, less lethal, but no less dangerous. The pointed focus of a vigilante that didn't kill was objectively much more terrifying. An uncontrollable killer acting outside of the law was a million times less complicated than a trained fighter who everyone knew could kill, and had apparently decided not to.

The day that Lance first saw the Arrow engage in a different kind of fighting was also the first day since the Arrow changed his tactics that he had killed.

Lance had pulled up in front of Queen Consolidated after responding to the 9-1-1 call that had stated that the drug dealer The Count had gotten out of prison again and taken Felicity Smoak hostage. He was completely unashamed and honest with himself with admitting that he had broken no fewer than seven different speed laws to get to the building early. As it turned out, he had arrived just as a window on the top floor shattered and The Count's body came tumbling down.

He smashed down on the windshield of the car, and even from where he stood Lance could see that there was blood seeping from his head. Lance didn't need to be a medical professional to know that that meant that the criminal's skull was bashed in. There were also three arrows in his chest grouped tightly around his heart and lungs. The arrows were green.

Lance jogged inside and took the elevator up to the executive floor. Some kind of classical music was playing calmly over the elevator speakers as he tapped his foot impatiently. He wasn't planning on arresting the Arrow for killing the Count, but he couldn't say honestly that he would be able to stop another cop from doing it if they got there first.

He walked in to the conference room to find the Arrow standing in front of Felicity Smoak and helping her up off of the floor. It seemed to Lance that he was being incredibly careful to keep Felicity away from the shattered glass. As he got closer, Lance could hear the two of them bickering.

"A bullet went through your arm," Felicity was saying, her voice was a little tremulous, but she didn't seem to be backing down. "I don't call that nothing. Do you call that noting? Well I mean obviously you just did but really that's not my point. My point is that you got shot which for most people including me is not a nothing kind of a thing. In fact, it jut really is a thing. It's not a not a thing kind of a thing. Which is kind of defined by the virtue of it being a thing. You know?"

The Arrow seemed to sigh. "I really, really don't," he answered as he noticed Lance in the doorway and activated his vocal synthesizer. "I promise you I'm fine." He reached out and took her shoulders. "You were kidnapped by a psychopath. I was shot by him. I am fine."

Felicity pulled her hand back and flicked her thumb and forefinger at the Arrow's right shoulder. Lance couldn't see any blood but he guessed that that was where the gunshot wound had happened. If he strained his eyesight he could see a thin shadow in the dark of a rip in the green leather covering his arm. The vigilante flinched and jerked his arm away. "You normally don't do that when I flick you," she informed him.

Lance suddenly got the distinct impression that the Arrow was grinding his teeth. "Your finger nails are longer than the last time," he muttered. Through his voice modulator Lance thought he sounded rather like a petulant and argumentative child. "I think you cut the leather."

"I did not!" she interjected before Lance could even try to warn them that the rest of the police would be there within minutes. "My fingernails are very deliberately under a care regiment for typing. Which is so not the point right now! You got shot. And you shot someone which on a whole other level probably really sucks for you now. So my point is that this is a thing and not a nothing which is actually kind of a thing. And I just started wondering how you ever manage to fix that suite because there is no way you can send it to a dry cleaner and sadly this is not the first time you have ever been shot."

Quentin cleared his throat and the Arrow looked over at him for maybe half a second before he turned back to Felicity. He laid a hand on each of her shoulders. "We can fight about this later if you want Felicity," he said. "But I have to go so I don't get arrested." Then he leaned over and brushed a kiss over her forehead before leaping out of the broken window.

If Oliver Queen and his body guard showed up later to pick up Felicity from the police and paramedics and Oliver repeated the same actions... Well who really gave a damn anyway?

The Arrow fought differently because the Arrow could choose.

Al-Sahem fought with the cold calculations of an expert chess player. He fought without mercy or regret. He was like a dark thunder cloud, killing people with quick lightning strikes that decimated the enemy. They sure as hell never struck twice either. Al Sahem didn't need to. One strike was enough of a death blow. And if the hit was coming there was no way in hell to stop it.

* * *

Most people didn't see that Oliver Queen was a fighter but Quentin Lance had known it since that first day he had picked up Laurel in first grade and Oliver had kicked Max Fuller in the shin. They saw him as a rich boy who by the grace of god and incredible amounts of luck had managed to make it through five years on a deserted island and come back alive.

Lance knew better. To survive a crucible you had to have the will to live. You had to be a fighter.

Oliver Queen had surrounded him with people who fought. John Diggle was a soldier and Laurel had been the kind of person who fought since she had learned what the word "argument" meant. Thea Queen was also like her mother. Steeled, defiant, and an absolute fighter to the last breath she breathed. It must have been a Dearden trait.

Felicity fought differently. She fought with her brain and a computer and her brain was impressive. Lance thought after watching her hold her ground verbally against Diggle, Thea, Laurel, Roy, Ray, Damien Dahrk, Malcolm Merlyn, and Oliver Queen on an adrenalin high with full arrow gear that she might just be the most dangerous of the bunch.

Oliver Queen and Team Arrow were fighters, and when they fought there was no getting in their way.

* * *

However, Lance also watched carefully and knew for a fact that Oliver Queen would forever and always loose fights against one person. He would stick to his guns like a dog with a bone, and be a stubborn jack ass, but he would still loose. Oliver Queen would always loose in an argument against Felicity Smoak on any and all fronts simply because he lacked the will to really do it.

Lance got the feeling that most of the time Oliver simply forgot quite exactly what he was up against when those arguments started. Then by the time the argument was up and moving the kid seemed to think it was too late to back down. So Felicity and Oliver would fight, and bicker, and argue until eventually Oliver would inevitably be shouted down.

During one such argument the two had reached a pause and Lance had watched Thea lean over towards Diggle. "Do you think it would help get this over with sooner if I made a comment about how the kids don't like it when Mommy and Daddy fight?"

Both Oliver and Felicity had turned to her and said a perfectly in sync. "Thea this is not the time!"

Lance wasn't even sure if they managed to remember what it was that they were fighting about.

That memory didn't resurface for him until the day that Oliver and Felicity's daughter Adrianna was born. The day that they were supposed to bring her home Lance had volunteered to hold the sleeping baby while Oliver and Felicity juggled their bags and the car seat. Adrianna had gotten a good grip on Lance's index finger with her eyes still shut, looking for all the world like she was sleeping soundly. "She's got a good grip," Lance commented.

"Yeah," Felicity said as she hovered over his shoulder for a moment. "Well she's already strong. She's going to be a little fighter isn't she?"

"No," Oliver argued. "She is going to be happy and safe and very far away from anything fighting or boy related until after the point where I can't do anything about it anymore."

Adrianna squeezed Lance's finger tighter and squirmed around in her pink blankets, her face pinching up before it relaxed again. "That's what you think Queen," Lance muttered. Privately Lance thought Felicity was right. This little baby in his arms was going to be a fighter. Looking at her parents, there was no way that would work out any other way.

But Oliver was right on a level to.

Oliver Queen was a fighter, and if Lance knew one other thing about the kid it was that he would fight until he died, get resurrected, and come back to fight again if it was for something he cared about it. When the Queen's and their friends fought they did it decisively. They breathed blood and fire and grew heads like a hydra. They found anyway they could to keep going and they didn't stop. Forces of nature collided collaborated for one common end.

When they fought, they won.

**A/N: Hey Guys! I'm sorry that it's been a while but school is a black hole of time. I hope you liked the chapter and will send me some more prompts to work off of for when I have the time. If there are typos or you think that this could be improved in any way please let me know. I'm seriously tired right now and my proof reading skills aren't incredibly high to start with. Review for me!xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo**


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: Not that I think you guys don't read this part at the beginning of every single other chapter, just, I really don't want to get sued. It would kind of suck you know? At least, I'm imagining that it would kind of suck because it's never actually happened to me. The point is, I would rather not be sued, so I'm still writing this part at the beginning of every chapter. And this part is to say that I DON'T OWN ANYTHING YOU RECOGNIZE FROM ANYWHERE ELSE. **

Quentin Lance's dearest wish regarding Oliver Queen growing up was that he would never ever posses one particular title. That title being 'son-in-law'. In fact, during the third or fourth time he had found Laurel with red eyes and empty ice cream containers, that wish had really been more of a prayer. Literally, the words "please God let my daughter have better sense than to marry that pretty boy moron" had crossed his lips on more than one occasion. Always muttered, but still spoken.

With hindsight being what it was, Lance had since revised that statement. The title son-in-law had been repeatedly edited to indulge the phrases innocent, honest, psychotic, someone I actually like, dead, and a legitimate businessman. Briefly that prayer had also included the title "a father" but after Oliver Queen had come back from the Island and in particular when Connor had entered the picture that phrase had been edited.

Now Lance had begun to think that the title he really should have been dreading was "politician". Not because Oliver was bad at it, quite the opposite in fact. Oliver Queen was scarily good at getting people to agree with him and do what he wanted them to do.

When Oliver had been very little most people including Lance had dismissed that particular trait as a little more than a side effect of having extremely wealthy parents. After all, no pre-school teacher was really going to get upset about a little boy breaking a window with a soccer ball when his parents could afford to buy the entire school building and everyone in it. Besides, if you had enough money to do whatever you wanted it gave even the shyest little kid the confidence to stick up for themselves to get what they wanted.

The other aspect of Oliver Queen as a child that had made it nearly impossible to really argue with him had been a simple matter of genetics. Lance was no stranger to the fact that all small children had a certain level of adorable as a given. Hell, Laurel only had to look at him with those big brown eyes and Sara only had to give that little smile that showed all of her dimples to get whatever they wanted from him most of the time.

Oliver Queen managed to blow that measurement off the scale. The kid had somehow been genetically blessed with the general appearance of a little cherub. Oliver's hair had darkened with age but at the beginning it had been a mess of straw colored cowlicks. He had been blessed with straight pearly white teeth and double dimples in his cheeks. Even better, as a kid he had smiled so easily that those features actually got exposed.

The nail in the coffin for Oliver getting what he wanted as a child had been the eyes though. Huge and a bright, bright blue that Lance knew for a fact came straight from Robert. Even more, those eyes seemed to operate their tear ducts on a complete and utterly refined hair trigger.

Lance had personally witnessed Oliver breaking down in to tears in front of his school principle over a splinter he had gotten on the playground. Somehow that had connected to him and Tommy single handedly taking on the destruction of the offending play set as their on personal crusade. Halfway through the conversation where the principle had been in a full blown chastisement to both boys Oliver's eyes had begun to well with tears.

Quentin had watched with disbelief and a small but difficult to squash out sense of being impressed as those tears had over flowed and spilled down his cheeks. Lance had to physically hold Laurel back by the hand to prevent her from running up to Oliver to provide comfort. Oliver had then managed to stutter through an explanation about how he and Tommy had only wanted to help.

Lance couldn't help but gape as ten minutes later Oliver was running back over to meet Tommy and begin to move towards them. As soon as the principle had lost sight of them Oliver had wiped his face and grinned in triumph. On later explanation, Lance had learned that by the end of the conversation Oliver had managed to not only get himself and Tommy out of trouble, but also to use funds to remove the old play equipment and install new kinds.

When he asked why Oliver had just looked up at him with those too big too blue eyes and said, "The wood was hurting people's hands. I thought it would be better for everyone if someone did something about it. It didn't look like anyone else would."

That statement right there probably should have been a warning.

To say that Oliver's abilities to talk himself into or out of any situation and get or do anything that he wanted through words had been turned to the dark side when he reached his teens was only a slight understatement. At least, that was an accurate description in Lance's book. Particularly given how Queen seemed to treat his daughters.

The fact that Oliver Queen was deemed in the media as Starling City's favorite screw up was testament enough to what the kid was capable of pulling off. Weather it was stealing a taxi cab, assaulting a member of the press, or urinating on a cop car, Oliver seemed to be able to worm his way out of trouble. Some of that was due to his money, but more largely Queen seemed to manage to talk himself out of trouble before a cop even managed to read him his Miranda Rights.

In regards to the taxi situation Lance had been the second cop car on the scene. To be honest he had been hoping that he would somehow be able to minimize the damage by arriving sooner. Bad boyfriend or not the Queens were still family friends, and at that point Lance was still trying to hold out point that Laurel's boyfriend wasn't a complete screw up.

By the time he had gotten there, Oliver was already shaking hands with the police officer with a bright, charming smile. Lance even saw him pause next to the cab driver for a photo and signed a quick autograph for the guy's teenaged daughter. He hopped in to a car Lance recognized as Tommy Merlyn's after a cordial wave to the press as they snapped a few photos.

"I told the nice officer that the cabbie had very graciously permitted me to take a test drive. After all I had never driven a cab before," Oliver had told him with a smile when Lance asked how he had gotten out of trouble. The officer in question had refused to talk about it with anyone at the station. "Paid for of course," Oliver continued with wide blue eyes that hadn't changed one bit since childhood. "I apologized for going so far, and it wasn't like I crashed in to anything."

Queen had then winked at Laurel who managed a weary smile. "It was just a misunderstanding. No harm. No foul. Even managed to part amicably with the cabbie after I promised his daughter an invite to my birthday." he shrugged. "Dad's always wanted me to be a businessman."

Lance heard Laurel sigh as she crossed over to Queen. "Lying to get out of trouble and get what you want while keeping multiple parties happy isn't business Ollie. It's actually way closer to politics."

Quentin saw Oliver grin. "Well, if I told that one to my parents 'm sure they'd be pretty damn quick to get on board."

The cold shiver that had run down Lance's back at that particular idea had been one that he had tried to repress with all of his might. He had dismissed it as a freak draft, or a basic reaction to something else going on. Lance should have trusted his gut reaction that Oliver Queen in a position of power any larger than familial or economic was going to be a sight of terror. But maybe also a thing to behold.

Being able to speak exactly as they needed to to get other people to do what they wanted, particularly without questioning it and hopefully without thinking about the fact that what they were doing wasn't what they had originally wanted was practically a requirement for all Politicians. Oliver Queen had had it long before he had officially earned the title of the job description.

Besides, not to put too fine a point on government but the kid could lie with the kind of capacity that would have put a cold war KGB member to shame. Frankly, their was really no way that ability could really hurt the kid in a political campaign. Not that Lance really liked the idea of the fact that that particular aptitude was a necessary one in any and all political levels.

The other politically handy ability Oliver Queen seemed to posses in spades was the ability to read people. Lance had seen it so many times and somehow hadn't ever quite seen exactly how dangerous it could be. Oliver had an ability to watch a person. He would tip his head up and to the side and just watch. Then when he opened his mouth he somehow always managed to say exactly what that person wanted to hear.

The ability applied to parents, siblings, friends, girls, cops, lawyers, and judges alike. Anybody with anything they wanted or needed to hear was someone liver could analyze, work inside of, and talk to. He had a way of looking completely unintelligent and undangerous until the moment he opened his mouth and said the most effective thing possible.

Looking stupid and playing dumb was a completely separate tactic that Lance frequently observed the kid using. When he had asked Oliver about it saying "I don't get why Queen. Why play stupid all the time?"

Oliver had merely shrugged a shoulder noncommittally. "When people think you don't understand something they explain it to you. Soon enough everyone is ready to tell you anything you ask them. Works on geeks in school all the time with homework and stuff. Plus I learn all sorts of shit about my parents company when no one who works there thinks I understand what they're talking about."

The reverse of that ability as Lance had previously observed seemed to be that Oliver could tell when other people were shoveling their own bull shit. Lance first realized that when he had noticed Oliver watching a political debate. He had been sprawled out on the couch in the Lance's living room with Laurel's head on his lap. Laurel liked watching the debates and analyzing what candidates said from a legal standpoint.

"Bullshit," Oliver said of one candidates statement.

Lance saw Laurel tip her head up to look at him. "What?"

Oliver gestured at the screen. "What that guy on the left said about how he supports immigrants and how single mothers are entitled to child support. He came to a dinner party with my parents last week spouting about how immigrants from Mexico were stealing jobs and after a couple drinks he was railing about how his ex-wife was a bitch trying to take away his money to look after his kid. He's full of bullshit."

* * *

Lance didn't generally like politicians most of the time. In his mind they either passed a whole lot of rules and regulation that ended up necessitating a whole lot of pain in the ass paperwork for him to do, or they ended up prematurely and inconveniently dead. At least, that's what they seemed to do on a local and directly effecting level.

On a broader level, Lance just kind of generally dreaded all notions of politics. He still voted during elections, but in recent years passed he had never quite been able to get over the feeling that all he was really doing was trying to pick the lesser of two evils. Not exactly reassuring. Besides, a lot of the time all politicians seemed to do was serve as puppet people for larger special interest groups. Maybe that was the depressing way to look at it, but Lance couldn't quite shake the feeling that it was true.

Still though, there was a certain kind of quality that Lance had to respect in politicians, at least in the good ones. Even in the politicians Lance didn't agree with ideologically there were generally a few qualities that he could generally respect if the politician seemed to honestly believe in them. It took a certain kind of unrelentingly determined bravery to stand up in front of a huge group of people who probably disagreed with you and lay out for them exactly what you thought. Saying "this is what I think we should do about this problem because it will help the most people and if you don't agree with me I'll go somewhere else and you can shove it" took a very respectable level of guts in Lance's book.

Being able to say essentially that every single day if you had to for an official job had to be freaking impossible. Oliver Queen might have been a horrible businessman, but he had at the very least managed to be stubborn enough to keep on hammering away at the issues within the company and accomplish some things. You had to be resilient, and frankly you had to be ballsy.

If there had been any question that Oliver Queen was both of those things in Lance's mind they had been heartily dispelled when he had first realized that Oliver was the Arrow. Green Arrow. Whatever, color specifics were really not his problem. They hadn't been dispelled at the original realization, but the following connection that meant that Oliver had done everything physically that lance had ever seen the Arrow do had done the trick.

First of all, the kid seemed to have no problem believing that in a situation that was him versus six armed hostile forces would resolve it's self with him coming out better of than the other six guys. Secondly, Oliver held a certain faith that if he threw himself on to a concrete road from five stories up on a roof he would still somehow not be crushed. If those two things didn't speak to a level of soul deep, somewhat violent self-confidence then Lance didn't know what did.

Genetically Lance had the feeling that that kind of ability probably had to be inherited. Having interacted and observed both Moira and Robert Queen Lance felt like he could probably break it down in to two sections. Oliver's steal determination and occasional absolute political ruthlessness was all one hundred percent Moira. Being able to stand in a room full of people who didn't like him, have a conversation, and then walk out of the room with those people being willing to give what he had said a shot Lance could only assume came from Robert.

What Lance hadn't really ever considered before he had watched the aftermath of a few of Oliver's campaign events was the huge energy expenditure it took to project that level of confidence to everyone else. It was one thing to have confidence that you had the right ideas to fix a city, but after looking at how tired and drained speaking publically sometimes made Oliver, Lance was finally able to appreciate just how much of an effort it took to make everyone else have that confidence to.

One of the few times Lance ever saw that confidence lapse was right before Oliver took the stage to give his final speech for the mayoral election. Lance was there watching because well, as previously mentioned, Star City's mayors and mayoral candidates had an issue with dying horrible. As soon as the chief of police had heard that there was even someone trying for mayor he had orchestrated a triple security detail for Oliver Queen and anybody who had any contact with his life at all who wasn't already dead. Oliver had only agreed under the condition that the officer in charge of the detail was Lance.

Originally the chief of police had brushed him off. If they had been smart Lance got the feeling they would have talked to Diggle when he had simply shaken his head at the request. Instead, Oliver and his entire team had merely committed themselves to slipping their police detail at least three times in any given day. The Chief of Police had managed to put up with it for exactly six days before giving up and putting Lance in charge of the detail.

"How are you feeling about it big brother?" Thea had asked, bouncing up to Oliver's side and reaching up to brace an arm over his shoulder. "Think your going to win?" she had asked teasingly.

Oliver had pulled off a bright smile. "Given the fact that I am the only one running and the election is tomorrow I think I like my chances."

Thea shook her head with a happy smile and brushed off the shoulder of Oliver's immaculate grey suit. "Awww... My brother the mayor," she stood on her toes and tugged down on his shoulder to kiss Oliver's cheek. "Don't be nervous," she advised. "Mom and Dad would both be proud of you."

"They'd be proud of both of us," Oliver told her with a smile much more genuine than the first one he had managed.

Thea smiled back, and that was the moment that Lance really realized that the two of them had the same smile, and the same dimples. It was strange to think of such a happy set of features having come from a women like Moira Queen.

As Thea slipped away in to the crowd Oliver looked from her to Diggle who seemed to catch the hint instantly in a way that he always did. The bodyguard moved after Thea with only a slight pause to clap Oliver on the back. "Good luck man," he said cheerily. "And don't worry. You've got this in the bag."

Oliver gave him a smile that Lance thought looked a little strained ad nodded. Then Felicity stepped up to him and reached out. "Your tie is twisted," she informed Oliver. "Honestly I don't know how you haven't figured out how to do this yet. I mean you first you were a billionaire heir of billionaires and then you were a CEO even though you weren't a very good when you still wore the suits. Though come to think of it I tied your tie a lot then to once you got to the office so..." she trailed off as her fingers flicked through the tie and deftly refolded the ends into a more respectable knot.

Lace saw Oliver's lips quirk up at the babble. "Maybe I just like it when you tie my ties," he suggested, hands coming up to support her as she teetered a bit on her heals. Lance noticed with a slight start that with his palms spread Oliver could cove Felicity's entire rib cage. "Maybe that's just another one of those things like running a multinational corporation that I know you are so much better at than me."

Felicity smiled and looked up at him, resting her hands on his chest. "Are you nervous?"

"Terrified," Lance heard Oliver admit without skipping a beat. "I know that I shouldn't be. I know that no matter what I do here tonight I'll be elected tomorrow. But still I just..." He trailed off and Lance saw him bite down on his lower lip.

"You want to win because they want you to," Felicity finished. "Not because there isn't any other choice." Lance was suddenly struck with how someone who was always talking in tangents could somehow manage to find what seemed to be exactly the right words.

Oliver shut his mouth and nodded mutely. Eventually he managed the words, "I want to do this because they believe I'm going to help them. The whole point of me running, of being mayor was to be a symbol. Someone that the people of this city could look to with hope, not just another reminder that they have no other options because everyone else was too afraid, to try."

"That's it," Felicity told him gently. "Right there. That's all you need to tell them. Make sure that everybody out there knows that, and you will have every single one of them voting for you." She reached up to kiss him and Lance became very deliberately interested in counting the number of bulbs in the light fixtures on the ceiling. "Remember,"" he heard Felicity say quietly. "Remember the first time you came to me?"

Figuring that it was probably safe to turn back around Lance saw Oliver smile, eyes still shut, head resting in her hands. "I brought you Floyd Lawton's laptop."

"Right," Felicity said with a nod. "Then you tried to tell me that the bullet holes were because your coffee shop was in a bad neighborhood."

Lance saw Oliver wince and inwardly agreed. "Yeah, that probably wasn't my best moment."

"Only thing worse was the syringe sports drink," Felicity agreed. "And somehow I still ended up trusting you, because I just _knew _that there was something inside you was trying to do good." Then she popped back up and kissed him again. "You are the man that I believe in. So, go out there and make sure that they know that to. Know that all you want is to do what is best for them, and they will all believe in you to."

Oliver opened his eyes and the look he gave Felicity was so warm and tender that Lance felt like he should turn around. That look almost seemed more private than a kiss. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, tucking her in to his chest for a hug. "Thank you," he breathed before ducking away and taking the few stairs up to the podium he would speak from.

The transformation was incredible to watch as Oliver took on the air of an imposing but approachable public figure an leader. The speech he gave was a good one, and what made I better was the fact that he had clearly memorized it. Then he reached his closing statement.

"I know that you've all heard about how I've been accused of being the Arrow. More than once. But if elected I am hoping that I will be able to be something he never was. These vigilantes can only hope that they can somehow protect the people of this city in the short term. If the plans I have developed with my staff to help this city are brought to term then this city will have no need to turn to those who operate outside the law. The _law _and the _police _will be able to be enough. Because you can't fight darkness with darkness, and the people of this city have lived in darkness for to long. This city is alive but it is dying and it is in _pain._ That pain is this city's crucible, and it has burned for too only way to escape- to help our city, is to help each other. Because once this city is safe with me and my staff as it's leaders, we will be able to help each other."

There Oliver had paused there for a moment before continuing on. "The only way to expel darkness is light, and if everything that I have experienced in the last eight years is that that light can always- _always _be found. It exists in all of us, and even the darkest, blindest hearts can be led in to the sun." He paused again and smiled, a gentle, genuine smile. Lance followed his line of sight and noted that Felicity was beaming at him from behind the line of television cameras. "We all have a long way to go. Maybe me more than anyone. But I will walk out in to the light with this city, and I would like to invite you all to walk there with me."

The applause had been deafening, and a series of shivers had run down Quentin's back like ice water. Oliver Queen was somehow able to do what every vigilante or public official had ever been able to do in Star City before. He had managed to give hope, and hope was powerful.

And political speaking, that was a hell of a terrifying thing for anyone who wanted to get in his way.

**A/N: So what did you guys think? Sorry it took a little while to post this. I had a few days off from school and what with the promo for next week's episode and Oliver announcing that he would run for mayor (epic by the way am I right?) this was just bouncing around inside my head and I figured it deserved to be written down. Anyway, review for me!xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxooxoxoxooxooxoxoxoooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: This is chapter I don't even know at this point. I highly doubt that you still need me to tell you that I don't own Arrow or anything remotely CW or DC related. If you do well then that's just tough cheese. Go re-read the first twenty words of any of the last dozen/ dozens/ seriously I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't know how many chapters came before this. In fact, I think I might have even worked it in to this disclaimer to if you guys really want one. Anyway, I think I have by this point ensured that I will not in fact be sued. **

**On with the story!**

Quentin Lance had always known that Oliver Queen's concept of home was a somewhat floating and transient idea. Really when he thought about it that wasn't such a strange position to be in. If you went around and asked a hundred people what home was, a relatively small percentage of them would tell you it was where they lived. Just as many of those people would be just as willing to say that home was the town they had grown up in.

As he had gotten older Lance had come to realize that for most people home was specific other people. For still others it was more of a feeling. The feeling that you were loved, cared for, and just generally safe being exactly who you were.

For Lance, his concept of hadn't ever necessarily been the small townhouse he had grown up in with his parents or the run down shabby place he had first moved into with Dinah after they had gotten married. He had felt no less at home once he had left those places for somewhere new. His parents had been home, then Dinah and the girls had been his home. It didn't matter where they all were. They were together, and that was home because in Lance's mind all home really was was family.

While watching Oliver grow up Lance could only assume that Queen had never really had that. The freaking mansion the kid had grown up in could hardly be considered homey. Lance had once seen Oliver's room and found that it's décor matched the grandeur of the rest of the house. Nowhere inside it had there been any indication that the person who lived their at the time was an eight year old boy.

In the Lance house his kids rooms were decorated and messy and practically bursting with their own personalities. Laurel's room was painted in varying shades of purple. Her desk was organized with every subject and all of her homework organized by color and by subject. In Laurel's room all of the dolls had coordinated outfits, and all of the books on the shelves on the walls were turned the right way and alphabetized by title. Sara's room was a multicolored explosion of clothing and toys all over the floor never to be picked up or organized. One of her walls was actually painted over with blackboard paint so that she could draw on it.

Oliver's room was cleaned and organized by the Russian women Raisa. Any of his clothes or toys were stored in closets and bins and were easy to find. He had a separate play room were most of anything messy or personality related ended up being kept. Basically, Oliver was just as at home in the bedroom he lived in as he was in the Lance's living room.

That was why (in addition to about eighteen million other fatherly concerns) Lance had felt doubtful when Laurel had announced with a joyful squeal that she and Oliver were going to be looking for an apartment together. Oliver Queen was a boy who hadn't even hesitated to get on a plane that would take him to a twelve week long summer program because his house wasn't home.

To have a home it had to be a place filled with people who loved you. Oliver's parents loved him, but they were never actually in their house with their kids. Thea worshipped the ground Oliver walked on but she, as Oliver had, had discovered that staying out of a huge empty house was the best way to not feel how empty it was.

Oliver Queen grew up in a family with at least five houses they could live in but he spent more time with Tommy or at the Lance's or just plain not at home. He didn't have a real home. And as much as Oliver claimed to be in love with Laurel, and as much as Lance couldn't completely say that the kid didn't, he had also seen how he looked at his little girl. Whatever love that was, it wasn't nearly enough. Not enough to make a home anyway.

Quentin was never completely sure what Oliver had in the way of home. Even after getting back from the Island Lance wasn't quite exactly sure what Oliver qualified as his home. When Sara came back to life he had noticed a similar sense of lacking a definite grounding point. Oliver Queen and his baby girl were without anchor points. They floated as shadows to accomplish the greyer things they needed to.

The thought that Oliver's home was Star City had crossed Lance's mind briefly, but his own quick trip to Lian Yu with Oliver and Sara because it had become necessary to revisit Slade Wilson had disproved that. The three of them had needed a place to crash for the night and the other two had managed to navigate by memory alone with Oliver in the lead to a large well camouflaged cave.

"How'd you find this place?" Lance asked. "I mean, come on Queen I've seen this place now. How'd you survive here?"

Oliver had glanced up from the supplies he was laying out and shifted a few rocks to reveal what looked to be the remnants of a very old fire pit. "This," he said, gesturing around. "This used to be our home. For a while there was this old hallowed out airplane. We all lived there for a while. But this- this Island was home." Queen had glanced back down and with a few deft moments had restrung his bow and straightened up. "On bad days- the dark ones, it still seems like it is."

Then he had gotten up and walked out of the cave, making a quick gesture to Sara to indicate that he was heading out to hunt. Lance craned his neck out of the entrance to see Oliver disappearing over the edge of a shear incline that had taken them nearly two hours to conquer earlier. Watching Oliver's progress Lance couldn't help but think that Queen and Sara had been clipping their pace to accommodate him. Oliver navigated the slope with ease before vanishing in to the woods.

When Sara had come in Lance had asked. "Sara, baby girl why is this place home?"

"Did Ollie say that?" she asked looking slightly surprised. She glanced around examining the walls and the supplies, both new and old that were scattered around the cave. "Well maybe it's not always home," she mused. "But for here while everything else was screwed up this place and the old plane we used to live in... they were just safe I guess. It was me, and Ollie, and Shado for a while, and Slade before he went insane, and we took care of each other. We had food for a while. We were dry and warm. It was just a safe place to go."

Sara sat down and made herself comfortable on one of the sleeping bags they had brought. "It's not really _**home**_ home," she said trying to further explain. "It's just home for who we were then. Home for here, not home for now. I think that's probably what Ollie meant. He'd probably be just as comfortable in Moscow. Anyone with eyes can see that now his home is wherever you see Felicity."

"What about Felicity?" Oliver asked, his head poking back in through the entrance as he walked in, carrying a dead something or other that Lance chose not to look at too closely until it was cooked.

Sara tipped her head at him as she stood and began to build a fire. "Just how you're all cheesy now."

Oliver had rolled his eyes, but hadn't really bothered trying to argue.

The next time Lance had gotten any sense that Oliver Queen felt like he had a home had been when he had dropped by Team _Green _Arrow's new lair underneath Queen's campaign office. How much did the kid really think adding a color to the name was really going to fool anyone anyway? A guy is still shooting arrows in to criminals but somehow this guy has to be different because now, he's green. Unfortunately for Lance's pride in the intelligence of his police officers, it seemed as though Oliver hadn't actually overestimated the stupidity of local law enforcement an the general public.

The whole Damian Darhk debacle was still in full swing but in something of a lull until the villain made a new move or someone on the team could figure out a new angle to work from. This meant that Lance suddenly had something that vaguely resembled free time after his "day job" ended each day. For reasons that defied his own understanding Quentin chose to spend that free time sitting in a basement watching Felicity hack in to things that she could definitely end up in a federal supermax for while he listened to her talk the team through their patrols.

Lance chipped in where he could. Normally the best he could hope to contribute were small pieces of logistic information; names, locations, etc. Otherwise he just did his best to keep any of his cops well clear of anything mystical or well, scientifically unlikely as they said.

Felicity paused her typing for a moment and began to chew on a pen cap. Lance had known her long enough to learn that it was one of the girl's many preoccupied habits. Not for the first time, he wondered how nerve wracking it had to be to sit back and guide the people she loved deliberately in to the line of fire each and every night.

"That should be the last of the muggers," Felicity reported. She checked another screen and tapped furiously at her keyboard for a moment. "The only other criminal chatter I'm picking up is a guy at the intersection of Hamilton and eighth whose been selling pirated DVDs."

"Is there anything illegal about the DVDs themselves?" Diggle asked over the comm link.

Felicity shook her head even though Lance was the only one who could see her. "Just garden variety film work. Some James Bonds, a couple Hitchcock movies, Frozen weirdly enough... Nothing remotely porny or anything like that."

Lance let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding and tried to muffle his chuckle at the babble. The way the blonde techie phrased things no matter how serious could almost always cut through the tension in a scenario. Still it was good to know that one less person was selling pornography. Frankly there were just some things that the world didn't need more of, but were still a pain to have to work through for the cops.

"How about we keep letting him keep violating copy write law for tonight?" Oliver suggested. "We can each make a broad loop on the way back and make sure we don't pick up anything on Darhk but otherwise I think we're good to call it night."

Lance heard a rush of static over the speaker as Laurel's line issued a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I have to be in court early tomorrow morning."

"Guys!" Felicity squeaked excitedly. "it's only like two AM! This is the earliest we've been done in like a week. Oh, and John? Lyla sent a message telling you that if you can make it back by breakfast time tomorrow she'll be making waffles."

"Guess I'll make this a quick trip then," Diggle responded.

Felicity made a quite sound of remembered contentment. "Amen to that. Lyla's chocolate waffles are something to be celebrated on national scales."

"I could be convinced to make you some for breakfast tomorrow if you're having a craving," Oliver's voice offered. Lance rolled his eyes at that. Finding out the Oliver Queen could cook had been surprising on a new and separate level.

Felicity visibly perked up. "Yay!" It looked like se was planning to say more but was cut off by her own yawn. She glanced at Lance and shrugged. "It may be early but given how late we were last night this is still like hour thirty in my day."

Oliver gave a small chuckle. "Just don't take anything with caffeine okay? Go to sleep if you need to. I'll be back soon and I am more than capable of carrying you to the car and into the loft."

Lance saw Felicity shake her head with a sigh. "You wouldn't even know how to start turning off all of my computer programs which still means that they are a very definitive no touch zone. Not like anything else I have. Those things are very touch friendly..." She trailed off and Lance saw her lips move as she counted back from three silently. "Just come home okay?"

"On my way," Queen responded without hesitating. Both of them ignored the sounds off mock disgust coming from Thea.

Quentin followed their example and turned. He crossed to the railing surrounding the raised platform that housed Felicity's computers and regarded the space. His eyes landed on the lit display cases. When he had bashed in to their original base he had questioned why they would ever keep that kind of evidence on display.

He got it now, especially as he watched the team file in. This basement underneath Oliver Queen's campaign office might have been hidden, but it was also the only place where no one on the team had to hide. Identities and weaknesses could stay inside those walls.

Those thoughts were only driven home as Lance watched. John Diggle walked comfortably across the foundry with his guns in their holsters and his helmet off. Laurel and Thea stood leaning against a low metal table talking about plans for a movie night over the weekend as Laurel brushed the tangles out of her post-wig hair and Thea scrubbed at her face with a cleansing wipe Lance recognized from raising two daughters.

The biggest adjustment was in Oliver though. Here in this base he seemed to peal back layers of disguise bit by bit. After his first steps inside his hood came down. Next he pealed away his mask and reached back to drop it into his quiver. As Queen passed one of the supply tables he unbuckled his quiver and set down his bow. His gloves joined that pile before he crossed to Felicity and placed a light kiss to the top of her hair, one hand landing on her shoulder and rubbing lightly.

Felicity spun to face him. "Hey," she said, sounding tired. "Are you alright?"

"All good," Oliver promised her with a smile. He leaned down to kiss her again and Lance turned away. A moment later he heard Oliver say, "Power everything down. I just need to change and then we'll go."

"And later waffles," Felicity added. She sounded like she had long ago hit the stage of tiredness where absolutely everything seemed more hyped up and entertaining than it actually was. Personally Lance called that stage punchy.

Oliver nodded still smiling. "Yes later, much much later. Then I have a campaign meetings from nine until six and then back here."

"Barrels of fun," Thea commented as she moved past. "I will be right there with you big brother. But first I'm going to change and head back with laurel. I need sleep. All six hours of it..."

"Stop complaining," Laurel chided. "I have court at seven."

Diggle slipped back towards the door, already changed with several clean white bandages wrapping around his knuckles. Lance remembered glass shattering earlier and the man reporting having to punch through a window. "All the more reason for all of you to quit you're chatting and head on home. I'm off to spend some time with my wife and daughter." He gave a small wave from the door way. "I'm out. Watch your six everyone."

Laurel and Thea were the next ones to leave. Lance walked out just before Oliver and Felicity. Oliver paused when they reached the campaign office and shifted the arm he had around Felicity. He looked over at Lance. "You two walk out to the car okay. I'm just going to lock up."

Felicity mumbled a tired agreement and Lance nodded. He made it a point to watch the blonde as she wobbled a little in her high heels. Mentally he resolved to weight until Queen reached the parking lot before leaving. Oliver followed quickly though, resetting all of the security protocols. The final step was the perfectly mundane action of locking the front door of the campaign office.

_Like locking your house when you leave. _Lance thought. The thought made him pause. The secret base was a home. They behaved like it was a home inside it, ad they locked the front door like they were doing something as simple as going to get groceries.

Of course, he expected nothing less of a home owned by Oliver Queen. Mundane and domestic on the outside. Lethal and purposeful underneath.

The lair had absolutely nothing on the home Oliver Queen had managed to make with Felicity Smoak. The first time Lance ever set foot in the loft space that had first belonged to Thea Queen it was in preparation for a very awkward family dinner. Of course, of all of the truly incredible women he could have fallen for in a bar in this city the one he bumped in to was the one destined to be Oliver Queen's future mother in law. _Of all the gin joints in all the world. _

But Donna Smoak was something special. She was blonde and bright and lively. She made Lance feel like his heart didn't have to be reserved solely for Laurel and Sara anymore. So, if Donna Smoak wanted him to eat dinner with Oliver and Felicity, he would have dinner with Oliver and Felicity.

The loft space was large and spacious. All of the lines were clean and he knew enough about architecture to know that the space was well designed. One entire wall was made out of windows that looked out over the lights of the city. There was something strange about that. It made the responsibility of all of the people out there almost omnipresent. There was no where in that loft for the Green Arrow to stop looking out for the people below.

That wasn't the most stunning feature of the space though. No, that aspect belonged to the seamless way Felicity's tastes had been blended with Oliver's. Looking around the room showed both distinct personalities, and still managed to express that this was a space belonging to two people who shared a life.

Warm looking rugs covered sleek hardwood floors. Brightly colored pillows and throws were spread and scattered over the furniture in the main living space. However, the furniture frames themselves were solid metal, utilitarian and industrial. The Hobbit rested on a book shelf next to a warn copy of the odyssey, and a separate shelf housed dozens upon dozens of movies and TV shows.

The kitchen revealed a frankly industrial looking coffee maker on the counter nestled below a cabinet that housed herbal tea in boxes covered in Chinese characters. A liquor cabinet below the island seemed to be split jurisdiction between authentic Russian vodka and what he would guess was extremely good red wine. The space was completely void of any and all nut products and the freezer was fully stocked with mint chip ice cream, a pint of which served as dessert for the evening.

Lance was willing to bet that if he had ventured in to the main bedroom or the bathroom off of it it would have revealed a similar fifty fifty split. In his head he could clearly see bottles of the extraordinarily bright nail polish that always adorned Felicities fingers next to men's shaving cream and two toothbrushes in a cup together on the sink. He could also picture a closet divided between men's suits and women's dresses with the bottom over run with shoes.

Oliver actually arrived slightly after Quentin and Donna did for the legitimate reason of mayoral business and was greeted by Felicity who had only just finished an impromptu conference call with the Palmer Tech board when they had arrived. "Welcome home," she said with a quick kiss to his cheek.

Lance saw Oliver smile over the top of Felicity's head. "After how long this day has been it is unbelievably nice to be home. He looked over her head to meet Lance's eyes before looking to Donna. "It's good to see you both. If you just give me a moment I'll be back down. I just want to run up and change first."

"Of course it's alright sweetie," Donna piped in from where she was seated. Felicity and I have plenty to chat about. Go go!" she shooed.

Oliver followed her light commands and moved towards the stairs. Quentin couldn't help but smile. The fact that Donna Smoak was in no way shy about bossing Queen around just made him like her all the more. "Whatever you like Kid," he added. "We're in your home."

Oliver met his gaze and this time he held it for a moment before nodding.

It was true. This loft wasn't just a living space. It was a warm safe space with state of the art technology and bright decorations with neutral colored walls. It was a place where weapons weren't required but the security was state of the art. It was two lives blended together between Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak, a girl who Lance could see the Kid loved more than any other person on the planet.

This was a home, and no matter what else Lance knew, he knew that homes were sacred.

**A/N: Happy Black Friday Everybody! What did you guys all think? I wasn't totally crazy about the ending so if anybody has any ideas for improvements I am more than willing to hear them. Thank you all for the amazing feedback so far. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo**


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I get paid for nothing written here and obviously if it's not my idea then it is probably the idea of the CW, DC Comics, or Warner Brothers. And if it was their idea then I wouldn't be writing it. Unless they were paying me. Which they are not. Because I own nothing. I've accepted it, so should all the rest of you.**

Captain Lance had learned early on in his life, as so many people do, that no one should ever underestimate the word please. One word and one syllable which when properly deployed had an almost incredible power to get you what you wanted. When he had been four or five and couldn't reach something on a high shelf, Lance had done what every other little kid which was to find a tall adult and say please.

As an adult he had learned that not all people received that lesson exactly the same way. To some people the word please was nothing more than a formality, an irritating but unavoidable social convention. For some people it was ironic, and to some others the word was nothing more than a method through which it could be made through that the speaker really wasn't asking.

Oliver Queen had been someone who had learned all of these methods and then some. The thing was, when you were as wealthy as the Queen Family and used to it, please just wasn't a word you had to use very much. In fact, Quentin can almost count on his fingers the number of times he had actually heard Oliver Queen say please. Maybe it was just that those particular moments stood out in his head more, and he had missed the other times.

One of the first times had been simply enough. He had gone by Queen manor to discuss the organization of a charity benefit for the police station and made a stop by the kitchen when he had heard banging and rattling from that direction. He had found a five year old Oliver perched on a high stool at the kitchen island, kicking his foot and chattering away as Raisa cooked.

Raisa had extracted a trey of cookies from the oven and placed them on a plate to cool. Oliver's blue eyes had seemed to widen to take up most of his then small face as he jumped from the chair to the ground and made his way around to the counter. Lance remembered watching as Oliver had reached up and tugged on the hem of Raisa's skirt to get her attention.

"I wanna cookie," he had stated expectantly.

Raisa had bent over closer to him. "We'll see about that Mr. Oliver. How about you try and ask again using the special words I taught you?"

Oliver had frowned as though he was searching his brain for the right vocabulary. Raisa had stood by patiently waiting and Lance had remained in the door way out of curiosity for how the situation would turn out. "Raisa," Oliver had tried again, looking like he was working hard to form the words right. "Can I hava cookie _please_?"

Raisa had smiled and reached for one of the cookies, bending to place a kiss on the top of his head. "You are a good boy Mr. Oliver. Can you remember to say it in Russian?"

Oliver beamed up at her, already stretching on to his toes to try to reach the cookie. "Pozhaluysta," he said with the sweet innocence only really small children could ever really pull off.

Raisa nodded and placed the cookie in his hand. "Now go medvezhonok," she shooed. "Out of the kitchen so I can make dinner. Remember your mother and father say no TV until one of them gets home."

The ending of the message was wasted. As soon as she had told Oliver to go the kid had already been skidding out the door. He had waved at Quentin as he went by and vanished up the stairs at the end of the hall.

Their were other little moments similar to that one existing in Lance's memory of Oliver Queen. Not many were very distinct. Normally they came either with adult prompting or when Oliver knew he didn't have another choice. One such time had been when he had overheard a fourteen year old Oliver asking for an extension on his history paper. The extension had been granted immediately after.

As Oliver got older and more accustomed to simply receiving whatever he wanted as long as he paid for it, Lance noted that the word please receded farther and father from his normal vernacular. Please was for when you needed other people to do you favors, not for things you could buy anyway. Tommy Merlyn was the same way. Please was just another cheap word to throw out when they felt like it.

All of that said, Lance found it most disturbing when Oliver utilized the word please the way his parents did. Lance had seen Moira or Robert Queen ask someone to please do something in a tone that brokered absolutely no argument. "Come in and shut the office door behind you please," was a fairly common refrain. It was a way of issuing an order while still maintaining the illusion of choice.

"Sit down and listen to what I have to say please," was a sentence that Lance had heard Moira issue to a sixteen year old Oliver. It was a pleasant and motherly enough tone that brokered absolutely no argument. Parent teacher conferences had just occurred at Oliver and Laurel's school and from the toe Moira was using he was willing to bet that the report hadn't been favorable. A corner of Lance's mind muttered that that was probably to be expected when it was the first out of nine such conferences that Moira or Robert had actually made time to attend.

Oliver had sat and Lance watched with a sort of quit horror as he glanced down at the floor and seemed to rearrange his own features. When he had looked up again he was wearing a mask nearly as blank as to Moira's own. Every line had been smoothed blank, Oliver's jaw had relaxed into a pleasantly neutral position, and it was almost like the light behind his yes had been shuttered. A light and focus still existed there, it had just been muted.

A slight flicker of expression had passed over Moira's face as though she to was slightly shocked at the change her son had been able to wrought on his own features. As soon as it had come the emotion was gone again. "You must know that your teacher's comments were less than satisfactory," she began.

Lance felt a new chill run down his spine. Her tone was all business, as though they were discussing a performance review of a knew marketing product. Oliver produced a shallow and still inhumanely neutral expression. "Were they?"

"Yes," Moira nodded. "Your teachers all had the same thing to say about you which was that you are a very bright young man who could do exceptionally well if only you could be a bit more bothered to actually attend class once in a while."

"Interesting," Oliver had commented off handedly. "Here I was thinking that a one in every five attendance record was average." He had raised his own eyes to meet his mother's. "Was I wrong?" His expression never changed from one of blank semi-curiosity.

Moira had taken a breath and leaned forward just slightly. "Your father and I would like you to please put in a bit more of an effort. There's still time before the end of the semester and we believe that that should provide ample time for improvement with a tutor." Oliver tipped his head to the side as though he was waiting for a follow up and Lance was shocked to see that Moira seemed to have one. "Your success would of course have a small effect on the duration and even occurrence of the trip you and Thomas Merlyn have been planning for this spring."

"Great," Oliver said, standing. "Well then I believe I have homework to do." He looked at her with the same pleasant blankness he had maintained through the entire rest of the conversation. "May I go then please?" The please was delivered with the same unarguable intonation that Moira had used when she told him to sit down. Oliver barely waited for Moira to sigh before he left.

That was when Moira had noticed him waiting and waved him in. "I believe Laurel is collecting her homework supplies, she should be down in a few minutes" she supplied as she offered Lance a drink which he declined. He still had to drive home that night after all. Moira took a deep breath and tossed back her drink, staring at a photo of Oliver standing next to Robert. "I swear he gets more like his father everyday," she murmured.

That was when Lance fully understood the chill that had raced up and down his spine through the entire conversation. Oliver's parents used please in business deals when neither side could afford to say no and knew it. Oliver had picked it up from them. Please with them was not polite a polite request. In the Queen family the word was barely short of a threat.

Every once in a while Lance saw Oliver use the word please with Thea. The times were few and far between, and before the island they were normally only in regard to trying to the kid trying to keep his little sister safe. Strangely, even after the island that one particular category of pleading hadn't seemed to change much.

The Lance family plus Oliver and Thea had taken a hike when the little girl was six years old in the woods outside of Starling City. They had made a stop for lunch and Thea had ended up wandering off. Oliver had been understandably panicked and immediately begun to search the surrounding woods. That reaction had been one of the few reactions from Oliver as a teenager that Lance had ever actually approved of.

Thea had eventually been found playing by a little stream a few hundred yards off of the trail. As soon as Oliver had seen her his entire body had relaxed, shoulders dropping a full two inches. Thea had bounced over and happily grabbed Oliver's hand to drag him over to see the little dam she had built out of rocks and twigs. "Ollie come see!"

"In a minute Thea," Oliver had managed. He dropped down in front of his sister and gripped her shoulders. "I will come and look at whatever you want me to, but first you have to promise that for the entire ret of this trip you will stay where I can see you okay?"

Thea's face had wrinkled into a pout and Lance made every effort he could to prepare himself. Wide eyes, wrinkled nose, and puckered mouth was a face he recognized. Tantrum mode.

"Ollie!" Thea whined. "Why?"

"Because I can't lose you!" Oliver spat out, nearly shouting. "Mom and Dad need me to take care of you. _I _need to take care of you! And I can't do that if I can't even see you!" He took a deep breath and Lance saw him shut his eyes for a moment like he was trying to put his brain back on track and calm down.

Thea's eyes were now welling up with tears and Lance could watch Oliver's expression comment. "Sorry if I scared you Speedy," he said in a much softer voice. Again, one of Oliver's few Lance approved teenaged responses. He reached up and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe away a few the tears that had begun to leak out."Just promise me, okay Thea? _Please _just promise you'll stay where I can see you. Please."

Thea sniffed and nodded. "Okay."

Oliver had barely let go of her hand until they had all gotten in to the car on the way back to Starling City.

Fourteen years later Lance was forcibly reminded of that day in the woods when Thea had been running main infiltration on one of Damian Darhk's compounds. It had had to be Thea because their only viable point of entry had been a street level window. Oliver had been on over watch.

"Be careful Speedy," Oliver had told her. Lance had only been able to hear it because a few months ago Felicity had all but shoved a com link in to his ear and told him to start being "more electronically reachable." That had been the end of it.

"I'll be fine big brother," Thea told him, making her way towards the entry point.

Lance could practically hear Oliver's tension vibrating through the electronic link. "Okay, and just remember to stay where I can see you okay? I can't-"

"-get me out of trouble if you can't tell that I'm in it," Thea finished for him. "I know."

"Just let me be a worried older brother for a minute Speedy," Oliver responded, sounding slightly annoyed. The beat of silence on the line seemed to be Thea's response to the request so Oliver kept going. "Just please be careful, and watch your back."

Most of the few times that Captain Quentin Lance actually plead with someone were when he was really and completely terrified for the health and safety of his little sister. However, none of those times had anything on one night that he witnessed late one night in December just before Christmas.

There had been a kidnapping which had led to a rescue which had led to a tree lighting which led to a proposal. Then, because certain universal forces of he world had apparently decided that they didn't quite owe Oliver Queen anything happy yet, there had been people with machine guns. Then there had been a call on Lance's radio telling him that mayoral candidate Oliver Queen had just been seen sprinting away from armed men firing guns towards the hospital. Carrying his fiancé.

To say that Lance and Donna had hurried to the hospital had been the understatement of the century. It would be better to just say that it was really, really good that Lance's car came with flashing lights and a siren. There was really nothing better to cut through holiday traffic.

When they had arrived at the hospital the sight that had greeted them had made Lance's blood run cold. Oliver Queen sat slumped on the floor outside one of the . Lance could easily guess why nobody had tried to move him despite how much he might have been in the way. For one thing, the kid was a walking talking embodiment of muscle and not easily moved. Secondly, the look on his face was nothing short of terrifying.

His expression wasn't empty. Empty would have been better than this. Oliver's face was completely and utterly blank apart from his eyes. The blue would have looked blank too if Lance hadn't known better. Layers an layers of grief and worry seemed to be wrapped around a nugget of cold hard rage.

"She's going to be in surgery for a while," Oliver said without ever looking away from the door he was sitting opposite. "I was inside but they needed room," he swallowed thickly, making the action look painful. "Room for all of the doctors."

"Oh honey," Donna said, tears beginning to stream down her face. Lance wasn't exactly sure what the best move in that situation was so he simply watched Donna sit down beside Oliver and wrap an arm around him. Oliver remained motionless, staring ahead but not seeming to be seeing. Lance sighed and brushed a hand over Donna's shoulder and then after a slight pause, over the top of Oliver's head like he had when the Kid was seven and fell off of his bike.

For a brief moment Oliver's eyes shut and his entire chest seemed to deflate, tipping his head back against Lance's hand and the wall like the weight of it had suddenly become to heavy for his neck to bare. Lance stayed where he was for a moment and then stepped away to go find coffee. He had a feeling they were all in for a long night.

He had been one hundred percent correct with that assumption.

By the time Felicity Smoak possibly soon to be Felicity Queen was out of the operating room and stable it had been seven hours and five cups of coffee later. Oliver hadn't moved more than six inches in that entire time and Lance had a feeling that if he wanted to he would have been able to count the number of times he had blinked. Donna had fallen asleep against his shoulder sometime during hour four.

The rest of Team Arrow had shown up as soon as the shooting had hit the ears of the news channels. Diggle had gotten there and then refused to leave. Thea and Laurel had been making rotational stop ins between scouring the streets for news of Damian Darhk. The most surprising stop in had been a very discrete and still red hoodie wearing Roy Harper. The kid had heard that Felicity had been hurt and immediately started driving.

Oliver had only moved to resettle himself in to the chair in Felicity's recovery room and had gingerly taken her hand. The girl had looked so small in her hospital bed attached to machines and wires that it had made something in Lance's heart feel like it was being repeatedly whacked with a two by four. Oliver looked even worse. In fact, if Lance's heart was being hit with a two by four then Oliver looked like each and every internal organ in his body was being put through an industrial powered paper shredder.

That had been another seven hours ago.

Lance had been on his way back from retrieving yet another cup of coffee when he had stopped in Felicity's doorway and seen Oliver actually move. Queen shifted in the hard plastic chair he was seated in and looked down at the hand he was gripping. After a long moment of examining the tips of her fingers he finally spoke. "I love your fingers," he said quietly. "And I love it when you type. I would be training in the foundry and I'd just hear your fingers tapping on the keyboard and be able to relax. When you were in Central City with Barry the Foundry was silent and I couldn't stand it. It was like every little sound was scraping against my eardrums."

Oliver sat back a little ways and seemed to be lost inside his own head for a minute. "When I was in college I couldn't stand silence because it made me have to think. Then on the island and... after, for such a long time silence was all there was. And I was fine with it. Then I met you, and suddenly I couldn't stand silence anymore." He paused again and dropped a kiss against the knuckles of the finger the engagement ring was on. "I think that probably happened when I fell in love with you," a small laugh seemed to push out of his chest and get stuck in his throat. "When did that happen by the way? I've been trying to think back, and I cant- I can't seem to figure out exactly when it happened. My dad told me once when he met my mother that there was definitely a moment. And I can't think of the moment."

Lance shook his head slightly. In his experience, you weren't supposed to fall in love all at once. He had done that with his wife and very clearly that had ended in divorce. When you fell in love all at once you could fall out of it all at once. Love was supposed to happen by so many tiny little degrees that it made it impossible to figure out where and when and how it happened so you never want to even think to consider where and when and how to get out.

"You've got to wake up," Oliver said finally, breaking the last moment of silence. "You _have _to wake up," Oliver repeated. "You have to because I'm selfish and I need you to be here. I need you to be here with your smile, and your bright hair, and the clicking of your heels and your voice, and the tapping of your fingers on the keyboard. I _need _you to be awake and okay and alive."

He paused another moment, and Lance could see the Kid starring down at her face with an intensity that suggested he was trying to see through her skin to see the damage underneath, demanding to see the problem so he could try to fix it. "Please," he finally breathed out. "Please wake up Felicity."

When she continued to lie there with her eyes closed and her head on the pillow Oliver blew out a trembling breath, rocking back and forth in his chair. His eyes were screwed tightly shut and he held Felicity's hand to his face, just barely above his chin against his face with both hands. "I have a son," he breathed out. Lance bit his tongue so hard it bled to keep from making an exclamation. He supposed thinking about it objectively it shouldn't have been that shocking but _still_.

"I have a son," Oliver repeated just as quietly. "I found out in Central City and I've been wanting to tell you about it but his mother said if I told anyone wouldn't be able to see him. So I lied, I did what I never _ever _wanted to do and I lied to you. And now you need to wake up so that I can apologize for being an idiotic, lying, undeserving moron who will never ever be a good enough man..." he broke off and shook his head. "A good enough _person_ to ever be able to spend the rest of my life with you. But I need you to wake up for that. I need you to wake up to shout at me like I deserve for keeping secrets and I won't mind and it'll break my heart when you leave but I just know- I _know _that however much that'll hurt everyday for the rest of my life that that pain will be a thousand times better than this one."

He pressed kisses against her palm. "Wake up," he pleaded. Then he moved down placing another kiss to her wrist. "Please." He shifted, placing kisses on each of her fingers, repeating the same words each time. "Please wake up, please wake up, please wake up."

Then Lance saw the only miracle that had happened that Christmas. Felicity's mouth opened and moved, forming words. Oliver's head snapped up and he leaned over her. "What was that? What? _Please _say it again. _Please _talk to me."

"You're welcome," Felicity said. Her voice came out hoarse and cracked but it was coming. "And ouch," she continued. "Like really and seriously ouch. Which makes sense since I'm pretty sure I got shot. Did I get shot? I really really feel like I got shot. Not that I've been shot before apart from that one time where Digg gave me Asprin that was definitely not Asprin. But all of the hospital stuff seems very shot-like. Not that I would know since I haven't actually been a patient in a hospital since the last time I had a nut reaction." Slowly her hesitant babbling trailed off and the hand Oliver was still holding moved up.

Lance watched as her shaky fingers wiped at Oliver's cheeks. "Never seen you cry," she commented.

Oliver's mouth opened for a moment and then shut and he shook his head pressing more kisses against her skin. "You died," he managed to stutter out. "You died once and they used a defibulator. You were dead and then you wouldn't wake up." Lance then noticed that Oliver's entire body had started shaking, tears slipped off the end of his nose and splashed on the blanket covering Felicity's chest. "You died," his voice cracked and then stopped.

"Not going anywhere," Felicity murmured. A yawn stretched her jaw. "Promise, 'kay?" her hand drifted a bit to cup the side of Oliver's jaw. "Not going anywhere, but we should probably call a doctor or my mom maybe? One of those'd be good." Lance saw that Felicity managed to open her eyes ad actually focus on Oliver. "I'm gonna get better," she assured. "Then we're gonna go home and get you elected mayor and stop Darhk 'cause your a hero and that's what you do. Then we're going to go see your son. Sound good?"

Oliver nodded wordlessly, looking for all the world like he had been granted nothing short of a miracle straight from every single force in the universe or supreme being in high heaven. "'Kay," Felicity acknowledged. "We're gonna talk more about it later 'cause you didn't tell me. But then I'm gonna forgive you and make you cook all my favorites before we go shopping to make up for however many years of missed birthdays."

Oliver continued to nod and her eyes drifted shut. "I'm gonna be a badass stepmom," she murmured. Lance saw Oliver's grip tighten on her hand as he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against her shoulder. Felicity's head tipped sideways to rest on top of his. " Get a doctor. I'm not going anywhere."

The kid nodded and pressed a hard kiss against her temple, and another in to her hair. "Please keep your promise," he whispered. "Please."

Lance had known Oliver Queen long enough to know that this time when he use that words it wasn't empty or mocking. It was begging, pleading, heart crushing fear, impossible levels of relief, and love. This team that one little word from Oliver Queen was everything. Just that one little word:

Please.

**A/N: So what did you think. I'm so sorry about how long it's been since I updated. I've had midterm exams and prep time for them for the last two weeks but now I'm free! That might mean lots more updates if inspiration strikes or any of you have ideas you want to send me. I had a request to do something about Felicity being in the hospital and frankly I personally needed the fact that Oliver has a son he's not telling Felicity about to stop hanging over everyone's head as a plot device for the sole purpose of relationship drama. So, two birds with one stone. Review for me!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: Just borrowing them everybody!**

Honesty is kind of a funny thing in Quentin Lance's opinion. Lying is such an easy thing that honesty more often than not seems to just sort of fall by the wayside. In the interests of perfect truthfulness, Lance isn't completely sure which side he falls on when it comes to honesty as a subject. Maybe that makes him a bad man, or morally grey, or whatever, but honesty to him has always seemed just a bit more complicated than some people would have you believe.

Because here's the thing, Quentin Lance is a Dad. He's got kids and sometimes having kids means bending the truth a little bit in order to keep everyone happy and safe. Not that he necessarily advocates lying to children, but as a parent you do what you have to do for the sake of your children. Rule one of parenting is taking care of your children. And if that isn't the God's honest truth Lance doesn't know what is.

Honesty with children sometimes just can't be used. It would never have helped anyone involved to tell Laurel that the tooth Fairy really didn't exist before she figured it out for herself. It also never would have helped to tell her that she should give up on dancing ballet because she just wasn't flexible enough to do some of it.

Lance also has no shame about occasionally forgoing honesty with Sara when the subject was at all related to her singing abilities, or the way that that one shade of truly horrible orange she had taken to wearing for a while when the was eleven, preferring to leave the honesty in that case to Laurel. Another subject never to be approached honestly with Sara is the ultimate fate of her pet gerbil Marshmallow.

So yeah, there is some basic avoiding of honesty in the Lance family and in Quentin's life. However, if he had ever felt bad about that about ten years before Oliver and Sara vanished and were believed to be dead and his life got more complicated, all he had to do was look at the Queen family and then he pretty much felt better.

In the Queen family the concept of honesty was pretty much on par with how most families viewed the idea of Santa Clause once all of their children were old enough to know the truth; sweet and a nice idea, but not really realistic.

Moira and Robert Queen avoided honesty everyday. They told their children that they absolutely loved each other and they didn't. They claimed that their family would always be together. They promised Oliver and Thea that they would always be there for them when they were needed. They also told Oliver that Thea joining their family wouldn't shift anything. They said that they would be there more for their kids.

Moira and Robert Queen avoided honesty at all possible turns, and Oliver and Thea took their lead from them.

Thea was the most honest one in that entire freaking family and she still grew to be someone who could subvert it completely after her father died and Oliver disappeared. However, she would at least tell people the honest truth about what she though. Thea never played the game that her mother played with the socialites and upper class of Starling City. She knew how to certainly, and Lance could see her deploy that knowledge. However, she also twisted and mocked that practice at every chance she got.

Thea would lie, but she would tell the honest truth about exactly what she thought of you and what you were doing. Little did Lance know that that ability would one day be used to tell him that he needed help, that he was self-destructing, and that Laurel (who was dead) would never be ashamed of him.

For Oliver it was too late though. Oliver was exposed to all of it for too long. He had caught the terminal bubonic plague of subverting honesty if he could think of any reason to do so. On a level Lance couldn't blame him. With Oliver Queen's life, lying sometimes jut had to be easier.

In the course of Quentin Lance knowing Oliver Queen, he has seen the both the boy and the man lie. And when he says lie he doesn't mean white lie, cross your fingers behind your back, fudge the truth, grey area, kind of lying. He means look you straight in the face, blink the right number of times, heart rate steady, no way to catch it, delivering of perfect false hood. Oliver Queen has pulled that off before.

But Quentin Lance has also seen Oliver Queen be absolutely, completely, heart wrenchingly honest.

Most of the time while Oliver is younger Lance sees him be honest with Thea.

When Thea fell and fractured her wrist when she was five years old Oliver was the one to take her to the hospital and Lance follows later when Laurel told him both where Oliver was and that both of the Queen partners are out of town on business. He didn't leave immediately, instead he called the number of the Queen's housekeeper first. When he found out that it was Raisa's week off he got in the car and got to the hospital as fast as he could without breaking speed laws. Well okay maybe one or two but who really gives a damn?

When he got there he found Oliver and Thea in a private room that he has no doubt was secured using the heavy application of the Queen name. Thea looked even smaller than normal curled up in the middle of the bed and a fifteen year old Oliver was talking to a doctor looking unusually serious for that point in his life. Lance opened the door and went in to the apparent relief of the doctor Oliver had been talking to.

"I'm Detective Quentin Lance of the SCPD. What's going on?" he doctor explained all of it to him, saying that Thea's fall on the playground had resulted in a hairline fracture of her left wrist. Lance noted Oliver clinging on to the doctor's every word over the man's shoulder. "Thank you Doctor," Lance told him. "Now why don't you give me a minute with the kids while you go and get the paperwork so I can get them home and out of your hair?"

The Doctor gage him a nod and left the room. Lance looked at Oliver and saw the kid deflate visibly. "They wouldn't tell me anything," he said quietly. "Thea was so scared and freaking out because of the hospital and they wouldn't tell me anything that was going on so I couldn't help and I..." he trailed off and Lance nodded.

Before Lance could speak though, Thea almost on cue turned fitfully and began to whimper. Oliver winced visibly at the sound of his little sister in pain and Lance's heart went out to the kid despite his intentions on staying detached. Queen had after all just begun to date his daughter. Some things just couldn't be helped though, one of them being feeling bad for hurt little kids.

Oliver took maybe half a second to compose his face and then turned around to face Thea. "Hey Speedy," he said. "Try to hold still okay? You gotta keep from moving your arm around for a bit." As he spoke he moved closer and sat on the edge of Thea's bed. "Do you remember what happened?"

Thea shook her head and more tears welled at the corners of Thea's huge brown eyes. "No. Ollie I was playing and then I fell down and then I got scared and then, and then-"

"Hey," Oliver said reaching out and wiping at Thea's face with his sleeve. Lance saw that his hand was shaking a little bit. "It's okay Speedy. You're okay. Deep breaths alright? You're going to be fine. You're gonna be okay. Look at me... Hey Speedy, look at me okay? You're gonna be fine. You _are _fine."

He waited a few more moments and kept up the same steady stream of assurances, comforting Thea as best he could. Lance was half tempted to hold Thea himself as his instincts as the parent of two daughters kicked in but Oliver beet him to the punch and curled up on the bed, boosting Thea gently up and in to his lap. When Thea stopped crying Oliver said, "Do you want to know what happened now?"

Thea nodded, burrowing her head in to her brother's shoulder. "You tripped," Oliver explained calmly. You fell and you fractured your arm. That means there's a little crack in the bone. But it hurt so much when it happened that you fell asleep so you could start getting better. The doctor's are going to give you a cast but you can have any color you want okay?" Then Oliver looked up at Quentin. "Detective Lance is going to drive us home later and when we get there I'll make you chicken noodle soup with the alphabet noodles you like and we'll watch _Little Mermaid." _

"Are Mommy and Daddy coming home?" Thea asked in her small little girl voice.

Lance saw Oliver open his mouth to speak, to tell a reassuring lie but then shut it. "No Thea they're not," he said quietly. "They can't get out of their meetings so they have to stay where they are. But Raisa will be back at the end of the week and until then you've got me alright? I'm going to take care of you. It'll be an Ollie and Thea weekend. Maybe we'll invite Tommy to."

"You can come and stay with us," the words were out of Lance's mouth before he could stop to rethink them. "Sara can room with Laurel and you can take the couch while Thea takes her room," he told Oliver.

Oliver looked up at him. "Thank you for coming down and helping us Detective Lance," he said. "But I promised Thea that I would take care of her and that the two of us would be fine together and I was telling her the truth."

When it came to Thea Oliver could be honest.

When it came down to Laurel on the other hand. Lance couldn't quite decide if Oliver was capable of honesty or not. On the one hand Oliver cheated on her. A lot. And on a fatherly level that really made Lance wanna kick his ass from here to Jupiter. On another level, Lance had to not that technically speaking Oliver never lied about any of it.

Lance had the unfortunate privilege of hearing more than one of Oliver and Laurel's multiple breakups. The one thing that he could track about it was that technically Oliver was always honest. When Laurel bothered to ask if Oliver was cheating on her he always said yes if he had been. There were no denials or excuses just truth. The fact of the matter was that more often than not Laurel didn't bother to ask.

That relationship was doomed from the start.

Oliver Queen was also honest with Felicity Smoak. At least, through the point of him having a son. Quentin Lance would still consider that to be the single most boneheaded secret that Oliver Queen had ever kept. And saying that about someone who had almost ruined their life with secrets more than once, that was really saying something fairly major.

The fall out from that particular lie involves two lie riddled relationships which Lance considers just as doomed from the start as Oliver's relationship with Laurel. Nothing dooms a relationship like a double life and Oliver and Felicity both had them. felicity could at least tell Detective Malone that she worked with the Green Arrow but not who the Green Arrow was or hat he happened to be her ex-boyfriend. Oliver could never, and should never tell the reporter he dated for approximately two months that he lived more than one life at once. Her attempted digging in to Oliver's Bratva past was enough to prove that.

Still though, nothing to sort out relationships and personal priorities like invading aliens who scrambled your brains and created false realities. Oliver fell victim to a particularly nasty trick and lay in a hospital for nearly two days before waking up. Later Lance heard him tell Felicity that he woke up by thinking of her. "You weren't there," he told her.

"Those aliens tried to give me what they thought was my idea of a completely perfect life and the thing that was missing was you. They set me up with my entire family and all of my fiends alive and happy but you weren't there. So I knew I had to wake up." Lance saw him take a small step closer to Felicity in the hospital hallway they were standing in and take her hands in his. Felicity was staring up at him like she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "You broke up with me because I lied to you," he stated. "So I'm not going to lie anymore."

Lance noted that he was staring deep in to her eyes and seemed to be focused on absolutely nothing else. Suddenly, Lance understood how exactly it had always seemed that Oliver and Felicity could create their own little world. A large part of it was simply in the fact that Oliver Queen had the ability to take his normal ability to focus on everything at once and narrow it down to exactly one thing and one person.

"I love you," Oliver stated. And it was a statement. He said it like it was a simple fact of the universe. The kind of thing that could never be changed or doubted. "I love you completely and utterly and I will never ever lie to you again even if it feels like it will kill me to tell you the truth I will do it. So, I know you're happy now and I want that for you. But I want to be happy to, and I want to be happy _with you_. That's the truth, and now I've told it to you."

He lifted each of Felicity's hands and placed a light kiss to each one separately. Then he leaned over and placed a third kiss on her forehead. "I'll be here," he said, pulling back. "Just know that."

That was the end of Susan Williams the reporter.

Billy Malone didn't last much longer and Lance knew why. He could see it coming each time Felicity left in the middle of the night or dropped everything to take a phone call. Something seemed to fade a bit in Malone's eyes whenever it happened. Lance also recognized the look that said Malone was looking for something. Some missing piece that would make the puzzle complete.

It falls in to place when Felicity gets kidnapped and it's Oliver and not the Green Arrow who walks in to get her. It's done at the request of the kidnapper who's really just trying to get at the mayor and doesn't know that Oliver Queen when you take one of his loved ones can be a million times more dangerous than the Green Arrow. The kidnapper was taken down in a matter of seconds by a very pissed off Oliver who honestly wasn't playing anymore and Quentin Lance knows that the security feed they established is going to raise questions upon review about how exactly the Mayor pulled that off but at that moment he really doesn't care.

As soon as Felicity was untied and the gag was out of her mouth she was in Oliver's arms and babbling about how glad she was that Oliver got the cyber messages she had managed to send him by hacking in to a satellite using her smart watch. Oliver just looked like he was never planning to let Felicity farther than arms length from him ever again and for at least the next four hours he followed that plan pretty much perfectly.

Billy Malone does everything he can to help sort everything out and though Lance is pretty sure he has figured out Oliver's Green Secret, he never brings it up and dissuades other police officers from asking more questions. He also still signs on to help take down Prometheus, but that doesn't stop him from exiting from the role of Felicity's boyfriend stage left at the next opportunity.

Honestly, Lance doesn't blame hime. When you should hold the title of "boyfriend" but instead so very obviously hold the role of "the other guy", you don't tend to stick around very long to have your heart demolished.

And so honesty begins to prevail. Despite all odds Oliver and Felicity manage to scrounge together the fragments of their relationship. The truth of Evelyn working with Prometheus is revealed. Diggle gets his name cleared, and Oliver and Felicity together handle the bad press and rumors Susan starts throwing their way. Felicity and Curtis also kick start their own company and Oliver hires Rory to be his PA. Generally, the personal honesty seems to be making life work.

Shocker.

That's Lance's sarcastic voice.

Then there comes to be the day when William Joseph Clayton arrives on the door step of Oliver and Felicity's apartment while Lance and Thea are both there having a bit of an unofficial family dinner. They had started having these sometime just after the whole Prometheus debacle when Lance had finished his rehab and Oliver's mayoral position was finally solid having dealt with the reporter who was trying to dig up dirt. Sometimes they would be joined by Rene, Rory, or Curtis, though Curtis tried to have dinner with his husband as often as possible. The Diggles showed up sometimes but they had their own family dinners to partake in.

Anyway, there was a knock on the door and Oliver answered it. Lance saw a boy standing on the threshold. A boy with slightly floppy sandy blonde hair, wide blue eyes, slightly tanned skin, and gangly limbs that gave the impression that he would grow in to them someday but hadn't done it yet. The boy looked to be about twelve years old and the resemblance he bore to Oliver was unmistakable.

"Are you my Father?" were the first words out of the boy's mouth.

Oliver stared at the boy for a second. Two matching sets of blue eyes were locked together and Quentin could see on Oliver's face that he was drinking in the sight of his son standing right in front of him. "William," he started to stay then he stopped and swallowed. "Yes," he said. "I am."

William seemed to deflate in the same way that Oliver always seemed to when he had questions answered and suspicions confirmed that he had had for a long time. "Okay," he murmured. "Okay," this time he was louder. "Yeah alright that's good," he rubbed his eyes tiredly on the sleeve of the overlarge sweatshirt he was wearing. "I've never needed a dad before it's just always been me and my Mom, but now my mom is dead," he rushed on before anyone could say anything. "She was killed and she gave me her compute and told me to come here so I think-" he swallowed. "I think I need my Dad."

Lance saw Oliver take a deep breath and then nod. "Come in," he said, reaching out and taking William's shoulder to guide him through he door. The boy sagged sideways in to him and Oliver caught him, supporting his weight. "Do you want to sleep? There's an empty room. Or some food..."

William forced himself to come back to upright. "Uh, bed I think. I haven't slept since it happened and I just wanted to get here before everything started getting complicated and people started asking about family so I got on a bus and now I guess I'm here," he heaved a shuddering sigh. Then he looked at the other people in the room all of whom had been completely silent since Oliver had opened the door. Then he looked back at Oliver. "I'll meet everyone tomorrow if that's okay?"

Oliver nodded and took William through to the guest room, returning a while later. "Uh," he said. "He's asleep for now. I think he's had a long couple of days what with Samantha and... everything." Oliver then turned to Thea. "This is going to be tricky with the public. I don't know how they are going to react to me having a son but I think he's here to stay and I- I want him here."

Thea nodded and got up. "I'll log some late hours at the office and try to figure out how to do this." She walked up to Oliver and leaned up to give him a hug which Oliver returned looking only a little bit numb which Lance found pretty impressive. Then again, shock probably existed on a bit of a different level when you were a masked vigilante whose family revolved around secrecy and grand reveals.

"Hey," Thea said drawing back. "This can be good Ollie. I have a nephew to spoil!" With that she left.

Felicity was the next to move. She got up and took Oliver's hand. Oliver looked at her. "Is this all going to be okay with you?" he asked quietly. "I know," he drew in a shaky breath. "I know that all of this might bring up a lot of things."

She shook her head. "Oliver, you're not lying to me about it. You're being honest about all of it. You son is here and I know about it and you've been honest about the fact that you want him to stay." She leaned up and kissed him. It was quick and sweet and Lance almost wanted to look away because it looked like the kind of private moment that other people weren't supposed to see.

"Now," she said drawing back. "Go sit with your son. I'll clean up dinner. When he wakes up and has had some time and we've worked out everything with the official paperwork and the police we'll all have a _long _talk about how this is all going to work, how we're going to work as a family. We're going to be open and honest and you will be able to raise your son in a better family than the one that you and Thea got. But none of that is going to happen tonight. One day at a time."

Oliver leaned down at kissed her again. "Okay," he said. "Okay. One day at a time."

"Completely honest?" Felicity prompted.

"Completely honest," Oliver confirmed.

Then Oliver vanished back in to the guest bedroom where his son was sleeping and Lance helped Felicity clean up before heading out to join Thea at the office. Breaking things to the public was going to be difficult, but Lance resolved to do his damnedest to make sure that nothing blew up too badly. Oliver, Felicity, and William were attempting to form a family and they were trying to be honest about it. No nosy reporter or snot nosed consumer of gossip news was going to twist that in to anything else.

Honesty possesses a strange quality, but it is a million times more powerful when you are used to hearing or telling lies.

Time for the public to get a little dose of Team Arrow brand honesty on the subject of the people that Oliver Queen loves.

Well one thing was for sure, if honesty became more powerful with rarity then this could prove to be the most powerful mega shot in the world.

**A/N: **I**'m so sorry! I've been in my senior year and applying to schools and been in the middle of my school play and three AP classes. Today has been the first time I've had time to write at all in about two months! Anyway how did I do? I have a feeling it might be a little rough but I have no problems making edits if you guys have suggestions. I wanted to try to fix things so here was my attempt. I also have something written that's a bit different which has to do with how William wound up on the doorstep and I'll figure it out the rest of the way if you guys are interested but it's not Lance's point of view so I didn't put it up at first. Anyway, review for me! I'll try to write again soon. Review! Review! Review! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


	25. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer: So Yeah no.**

**Warning Warning Warning Warning Warning: I think there's a trigger warning needed here. I'm not completely sure how this system works though.**

Quentin Lance was perfectly aware that all people had their own demons. He felt that most people were fully entitled to them. Demons, inner voices, conflicting sides, confusion over what to do, those were all perfectly normal parts of the human psychological makeup.

Lance had his own demons. You couldn't travel through a life that included divorce, alcoholism, rehab. relapses, and three daughterly deaths. Lance was still trying to work out in a darkly sarcastic part of his brain how that was even mathematically possible. After all, he had started with three daughters, mourned the death of a child three times, and still had one left alive.

He guessed that that was probably a question for another day.

Anyway, the point was Lance accepted that everyone past the approximate age of seven had demons. Anyone who said that they didn't was either lying or kidding themselves. Or both. Yeah, for most people it was pretty much a mix of both.

Still though, Lance had to be honest. He had never truly anticipated that a billionaire like Oliver Queen would have quite so many.

By all accounts Oliver Queen lived a very good life. He was incredibly wealthy and had all of the perks that went along with it. By outward appearance he had parents who loved him and cared for him. To be fair Lance knew that in their way they did. Basically he should be one of the very few people who had a minimum of inner conflict.

Lance knew that that wasn't true.

The first demon that Lance ever knew Oliver carried was the demon that all children of successful parents carried with them no matter what. Children with incredibly successful parents carried the expectation of sharing that success with them like shadows looming over them, dark, tall, and inescapable. Oliver carried those shadows.

With every passing year Lance felt as though he was siting and watching those shadows grow. Each time Oliver failed a test and had to report the grade, when Moira and Robert failed to come to parent teacher night, or a lacrosse game because of one important business function or another the shadows blackened and stretched.

Lance thought that that was probably why Oliver acted out, drank, peed on cop cars (yeah Lance hadn't forgotten about that one yet), and dropped out of colleges. Shadows were easier to not see when you lived in the dark anyway. Plus it was just so much harder to care about legacies and expectations when you were drunk.

A vice for alcohol was one particular demon Lance could admit to sharing with Oliver. Though, in this case it was a vice that Lance knew full well he grew to carry farther than Oliver ever did. Irresponsible Queen was, an alcoholic he was not.

Quentin Lance heard more than one small snippet of conversation as both Oliver and Tommy grew older in regards to their use of alcohol to attempt to drown out their little demons. Little really only in that their true demons hadn't yet come to stay.

The first was simply a crack from Tommy when the two boys discussed going out for drinks. "What do you think of getting some shots?" Tommy had asked.

"Well you know what they say," Oliver had replied. "Two or three a day keep the expectations and the disappointment away."

Lance knew that Oliver Queen had lived with demons anyway. Their was the demon of honoring parents, living up to parents that would never think you had, succeeding when success was impossible. And it and all of it's friends loomed large and obvious in Queen's head for years and years.

And Lance watched. The shadows soon grew voices, and as Oliver continued to act out more and more Lance had the feeling that those voices were growing louder. But at least those voices were fairly lonely.

Then of course Oliver was stranded on that freaking island in the North China Sea. If that wasn't enough to give you a whole host of psychological issues, or new demons, then nothing was. In fact, the level of normality that Queen pretended to have on his return was one of the first clues that Lance had that something was truly very, very wrong inside his mind.

The Oliver Queen that Quentin Lance had known when he was a child had always smiled like he wanted the entire world to know that he was pleased. Queen had had bright dimples, and a set of pearly teeth and used both of them to smile like nothing else. Most of Lance's memories of Oliver as a smaller boy involved laughing pouring in from his living room as Tommy Merlyn, Laurel, and Oliver all played together.

The old Oliver Queen didn't smile like it hurt. That boy didn't smile like the only thing funny about life was that everyone was buying that the smile was real. Oliver did now. The demons he carried now were blocking out his smile.

The old Oliver Queen also hadn't stood straight backed and alert, walked like a boxer, or held himself like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Lance supposed that demons and pocket devils were plenty heavy enough to shift your posture.

The first look that Lance got at Oliver's new demons after the island was during his interrogation when he first thought that the Queen kid was the Hood, which, oh yeah, he had been right about. All I-told-you-so-s aside, Quentin knew that he would never as long as he lived forget the way that Oliver had looked when Lance asked:

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

Oliver had never broken eye contact. He hadn't shifted or fidgeted. Until he had. Oliver had taken a deep breath and turned his head down, glancing at the wires on his hands and chest before looking back up. His face had been shut down and unreadable. "Yes," he said slowly. "When I asked your daughter to come on the yacht with me."

He had stopped and swallowed, and when he spoke his voice was almost painful in it's simplicity. "I killed your daughter." It was a statement of fact, one that Oliver seemed almost surprised to hear himself saying. He seemed almost horrified that the words had actually come out of his mouth.

Then Oliver had gotten up and left the room.

Later, when Lance had finished being furious about the whole affair Lance remembered a moment when Raisa had come to the Lance home to pick up Oliver. The Queen kid had been waiting because Robert was supposed to pick him up from there to take him to a baseball game. Oliver had bounced to Raisa, babbling with excitement and then fallen quiet as she explained something in a low tone.

Then Lance had heard Oliver say one sentence. "I know, Dad's not coming." He had stated it with the same surprised, open, admission of a fact that Oliver had known was true but maybe didn't think he would ever say.

_Dad's not coming. _

_I killed your daughter. _

Parents and death. Guilt and expectation. And above and worst of all, that most disappointing and surprising of all things held in the typical Pandora's Box. Hope.

Despite all his other demons and newly prepared gruff realism, Oliver was still in some tiny corner of his mind a tiny boy hoping that the world was good, and that he could be good along with it.

Once Lance had been in the Arrow Cave to see if the team had had any better luck in tracking down the latest street thug who had tried to step up to fill the shoes of Tobias Church. His new position as Deputy Mayor gave him his old access to the police force but many of the officers had gotten a bit more tight lipped around him. So, vigilante team up time it was.

Oliver had been outgunned in the verbal manor and backed in to a corner by Thea, Felicity, Diggle, and even Curtis in to taking a quick nap. That quick nap had, very fortunately in Lance's opinion, turned in to an extended two and a half hour rest. Frankly Lance still wasn't sure when else Oliver was finding any time to sleep.

Quentin was startled some out of the thoughts he had been idly contemplating when Oliver had begun to twitch and shake. Small mutterings in multiple languages some of which Lance didn't even recognize reached his ears. Lance was just contemplating what exactly the safest way would be to wake Oliver up (he could still remember how long it had taken the bruises to fade from his arm after the last time he had given this particular feat a try) when Diggle entered and did he job for him.

Diggle went about the task with great intelligence and delicacy. He dug his water bottle out of the gym bag he carried and up ended it over Oliver's head from the relatively safe distance of about two feet away. It had the desired effect.

Oliver busted upright gasping. He blinked rapidly and rubbed the water out of his eyes. "What the hell Dig?" he asked, looking about as happy to be awake as a poked bear. Lance was reminded of the motto from Hogwarts School that Sara had read to him out of one of the Harry Potter books _Never tickle a sleeping dragon. _

"Looked like you were having a pretty bad dream man," Diggle commented. He pulled up a new swivel chair so that he could sit next to Queen on the couch and plopped down with his elbows resting on his knees. "Wanna talk about it? Or is this going to be another one of those things you just bottle up until it gets unhealthy? 'Cause I have to be honest I think you might have enough of that."

Oliver dropped his own head back on to the back of the couch and then sat back up straight. "I _know _I already have enough that it's unhealthy. But no, this isn't anything new really. Just the same old ghosts."

Lance saw Diggle nod. "Tommy."

"Him," Oliver agreed. "And others- too many others Diggle." There was a long moment of silence before Oliver spoke again saying "Sometimes I wonder when I'm going to stop loosing people."

Diggle sat back a little. "We all have our own Ghosts man. Hell you know I've got them. So did Roy, Sara, Ray, Thea even shares some of the same ones as you. We all live a life that comes with ghosts and we all chose it for ourselves." He leaned a little closer again. "And that's not on you either man. _We _picked. Us. Not you. We all have ghosts."

"Yeah?" Oliver said with a faintly questioning tone. He stood and moved for the well worn salmon ladder. "Well mine are running out of room."

However, Lance didn't really have any kind of grasp of the effect that Oliver's demons might be taking on his mind until Prometheus showed up. Prometheus wasn't afraid to bring up the bodies, and that seemed to have the unbearable effect of setting free all of the demons that Oliver had spent so much time meticulously locking away. The worst, crudest, and most effective tool of psychological torture. _Guilt. _

Six months after Oliver had been tricked in to killing Billy Malone each and every one of those demons was dragged out to play.

God it had been a bad six months.

Billy's death had led to Felicity burying herself in work, the non-vigilante kind and Curtis had dove in with her after his split from Paul. Paul had yet to come back from his brother's house. This absence of the two brightest and most optimistic personality elements from the group had meant that there was nothing to stop Oliver from retreating a little way further in to doom central.

Susan Williams had perhaps predictably proven to be after a good story more than anything else. She had tried to dig in to Oliver's past in Russia, going so far as to try to manipulate Oliver in to giving her damning details. She had ended up publishing a piece that had been thin enough for Thea to poke holes in and get dismissed but it had still twisted something in Oliver a little bit farther to find out that yet another one of his girlfriends was more interested in what she could get out of the relationship than actually having something real with him.

Then Laurel had come back but it wasn't quite the right Laurel. And then she had had to leave forever, again, and Quentin's heart had actually broken a little bit with Oliver's. Thea had also gotten injured more than once after months and huge amounts of effort to evade a life of violence. Diggle had gotten the charges against him dropped but it had taken time and effort and energy that just wasn't really there to spend in the first place.

Later had come the probably inevitable moment of Evelyn's death caught in the crossfire of a war she should never have tried to enter. Oliver had tried to save her, had gone to her when she was bleeding out and tried to put pressure on the bleeding wound in her side and called for help. It hadn't worked.

Nothing would have.

Evelyn had been dead the moment that she signed on to try to help Prometheus. The arrow that had killed her had belonged to Prometheus not Oliver. No one was sure weather Prometheus had done it on purpose or simply missed. Either way the teenager had become collateral damage.

She had died in Oliver's arms. Her last words were heard over the comm. "I just wanted to make the city better. J-just wanted- wanted to fix things."

"I know shh," Oliver said desperately. "Shh shh I know I know. You're going to be okay you hear me? You're going to be fine. Hey! Keep your eyes open Evelyn!"

Evelyn had given a last raspy chuckle. "You... shouldn't tell lies... to dying girls."

She had been buried near her mother and father the way she had once told Rory she wanted.

The evening after the funeral was the evening that Oliver had gone missing. He had gotten a call just after the funeral and then vanished. Felicity hadn't been able to track his phone and he hadn't worn the shoes with the trackers in them that morning.

Felicity and Lance had been the ones to find Oliver eventually. When they did he was sitting on the dock that the Queen's Gambit had left from a full decade ago almost to the day. He was staring out at the water and sowed no acknowledgement at their approach but Lance knew that he must have realized that he was there. The last of the sun was just beginning to touch the water, turning it a bright, burning reddish-orange.

"Oliver?" Felicity called quietly.

Oliver didn't turn. "I left videos," he said. "Just in case. I mean, I don't know what's going to happen but I wanted to be sure. I guess it worked all right with William so why not right?"

He still hadn't turned and Lance was beginning to be seriously concerned. Felicity didn't seem to be doing much better. "Oliver," she said again. "What's going on?"

"Tell Thea that I want her to be well okay?" Oliver said turning to look at her finally. The light from the dying sun was reflected in his eyes as well as the water. A man who was burning alive. "Promise me that. I know that you don't owe me anything. God if anything I owe you so much. But i think this is the last one alright? Just promise me that you and Thea and Diggle and Curtis and Rory are going to live good lives. Get Roy back anyone should take my place it should be him."

"What are you talking about Oliver?" Felicity demanded, sheer terror leaking in to her voice. "No one is going anywhere! No one needs to take your place. We are all going to live good lives together."

Oliver shook his head with a ridiculous laugh that sounded like it had been ripped out of him with a rusted knife. "Well, to be honest I'd say it's probably about a fifty fifty shot." He gestured at the ground and Lance followed the gesture to see a small silver gun lying on the planks of the dock.

"It's the same one that my father shot himself with. I think Prometheus must have looked up the records to see what kind it was because that gun is still lost somewhere on Lian Yu." Felicity moved to interrupt but Oliver simply kept going. "It's roulette Felicity," he said tiredly. "Russian Roulette. There's another gun that Prometheus must have. One is loaded the other isn't." He shrugged. "I guess we'll find out which in a minute."

"This is insane!" Felicity shouted. "You are not engaging in some sick suicide game! Get up and come home!"

"This shuts the loop Felicity," Oliver said. God he sounded exhausted to Lance. "If Prometheus dies then all of this is over. If I die then he gets what he wants and all of this stops. Either way it's just _over._ No other innocent kids are going to die, no city being used as a battleground, no more collateral damage. Maybe this is just... simpler"

"And nothing good can happen anymore either!" Felicity said pleadingly. "All of the good that you do stops. Innocent people, people like Evelyn, Billy, and Tommy loose the only protector they have. No body else is really going to try to save those people because your heart is so big that you let them all in. That's not weak it's strong and you can't let Prometheus take that from you. The bad guys don't stop being bad just because you stop fighting them off. You have to fight Oliver!"

Oliver shut his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chest. Slowly, after the longest pause Lance had ever experiences, Oliver nodded. Lance heaved a huge sigh of relief and dashed forward to pick up the gun. With practiced ease he checked the chamber. Empty.

"This one's empty," he confirmed quietly.

As though on cue, from far away across the water.

"I know," Oliver said quietly. Looking at Felicity and Lance he said in a voice that spoke of bone weary exhaustion. "TO be honest, I thought it felt light but... I wasn't sure. This was Prometheus's game. I just played to the end."

He heaved in a dry rattling breath and made full eye contact with Felicity. "I know you're going to tell me in a minute how insane all of this was. I know. But this had to _end _Felicity. One way or another it had to be _done."_ Lance saw that his hands were shaking.

"I've been fighting for so long Felicity," he said tremulously. "Sometimes I just want to stop. I hear all of the voices of the people I've killed. I see their faces, remember their names," tears had started to overflow his eyes. "When I sleep I can hear them and most of the time I just want it to stop."

Oliver was shaking so hard now that Quentin could hear his teeth rattling. "I just want it to stop. Please let it stop. Just please... Please I want to be done." Felicity dropped to the planks next to Oliver and wrapped her arms around him. "Not-not forever," Oliver continued. "Just for a while. Just for a little while I need to be donee. Okay? Can that be okay? Please just.."

"Shh.." Lance heard Felicity murmur. "It's okay Oliver. Just- just close your eyes okay? We'll go home when you feel up to moving and then, then we'll pack up a few bags and we'll go somewhere."

"Where?" Oliver asked quietly. Lance was reminded of a small child. Always asking why.

He saw Felicity shake her head slightly. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Just you and me and Thea if she wants to come. We'll go somewhere else and for a while we're just going to be done. Then next time, we'll start new. No more of the past coming back to twist our future. It'll be an actual new start."

Lance took that moment to move forward. he sank down on to his knees and pulled both of them in to the best hug he could manage. "New will be good Kid," he managed, feeling like he was speaking around a knot in his throat. "I think maybe we could all use something new. Like you said, this closes a chapter. Start the new one as yourself, just let those demons you're carrying around go back to bed. Send them packing." At that he felt Oliver seem to release some weight back in to him. Lance swallowed again. "Have a good life Oliver. We all deserve that."

Oliver had demons and dear God could those demons be loud, but even the strongest demon could be destroyed. If there was one thing Lance knew Oliver deserved it was that.

**A/N: So yeah that happened. This was I know substantially more angsty than I normally write. it's kind of my theory on how this season could go based on what's gone on so far and the interviews I've heard. I'm not completely sure about this so let me know what you thought. If you have any suggestions for future chapters let me know. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox**


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